THE  LITERARY  PRIMACY 
OF  THE  BIBLE 


GEORGE  P.  ECKMAN 


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BOOKS  BY  THE  SAME  AUTHOR 

STUDIES  IN  THE  GOSPEL  OF  JOHN 

FIRST  SERIES,  CHAPTERS  I-XII 

SAME,  SECOND  SERIES,  CHAPTERS  XIII-XXI 

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THE 

LITERARY  PRIMACY 
OF  THE  BIBLE 


BY 

GEORGE  P.  ECKMAN 


THE  METHODIST  BOOK  CONCERN 
NEW  YORK  CINCINNATI 


/ 

c. 


Copyright,  1915,  by 
GEORGE  P.  ECKMAN 


The  Bible  text  printed  in  italics  in  this  volume  is  taken  from 
the  American  Standard  Edition  of  the  Revised  Bible,  Copyright, 
1901,  by  Thomas  Nelson  &  Sons,  and  is  used  by  permission. 


TO  THE  MEMORY  OF 

MY  FATHER 

WHO  TAUGHT  ME  TO  VEN- 
ERATE THE  SCRIPTURES 
AND  ENCOURAGED  ME  TO 
"PREACH  THE  WORD" 


359894 


CONTENTS 

CHAPTER  PACK 

FOREWORD        .     .     . 9 

INTRODUCTORY  NOTE 11 

I.  THE  LITERARY  PRIMACY  OF  THE  BIBLE    .  13 

II.  THE  POETRY  AND  ORATORY  OF  THE  BIBLE  48 

III.  THE  FICTION  AND  HUMOR  OF  THE  BIBLE  .  86 

IV.  THE  BIBLE  THE  MOST  PERSISTENT  FORCE 

IN  LITERATURE 122 

V.  THE  BIBLE  AS  ETHICAL  AND  SPIRITUAL 

LITERATURE 153 

VI.  THE  BIBLE  AS  INSPIRED  LITERATURE  181 


FOEEWORD 

THE  late  Reverend  Marmaduke  H.  Menden- 
hall,  D.D.,  of  the  North  Indiana  Conference 
of  the  Methodist  Episcopal  Church,  donated 
to  DePauw  University  the  sum  of  ten  thou- 
sand dollars,  the  purpose  and  conditions  of 
which  gift  are  set  forth  in  his  bequest  as 
follows : 

The  object  of  this  gift  is  "to  found  a  per- 
petual lectureship  on  the  evidences  of  the 
Divine  Origin  of  Christianity,  to  be  known  as 
the  Mendenhall  Foundation.  The  income  from 
this  fund  shall  be  used  for  the  support  of  an 
Annual  Lectureship,  the  design  of  which 
shall  be  the  exhibition  of  the  proofs,  from  all 
sources,  of  the  Divine  Origin,  Inspiration,  and 
Authority  of  the  Holy  Scriptures.  The  course 
of  lectures  shall  be  delivered  annually  before 
the  University  and  the  public  without  any 
charge  for  admission. 

"The  lecturers  shall  be  chosen  by  an  elect- 
ing body  consisting  of  the  President  of  the 
University,  the  five  senior  members  of  the 
Faculty  of  the  College  of  Liberal  Arts,  and 
the  President  of  the  Board  of  Trustees,  sub- 
ject to  the  approval  of  the  Board  of  Bishops 

9 


10  FOREWORD 

of  the  Methodist  Episcopal  Church.  The  lec- 
turers must  be  persons  of  high  and  wide  re- 
pute, of  broad  and  varied  scholarship,  who 
firmly  adhere  to  the  evangelical  system  of 
Christian  faith.  The  selection  of  lecturers 
may  be  made  from  the  world  of  Christian 
scholarship  without  regard  to  denominational 
divisions.  Each  course  of  lectures  is  to  be 
published  in  book  form  by  an  eminent  publish- 
ing house  and  sold  at  cost  to  the  Faculty  and 
students  of  the  University." 

GEORGE  R.  GROSE, 
President  of  DePauw  University. 


INTEODUCTORY  NOTE 

WITHIN  the  limits  of  a  half  dozen  addresses 
it  was  impossible  to  treat  with  any  fullness 
the  theme  of  these  lectures.  They  were  merely 
intended  to  be  suggestive  of  the  vast  and  fruit- 
ful field  which  lies  open  to  every  student  of 
literature. 

The  citations  from  the  Scriptures  which  are 
used  as  examples  are  chiefly  from  the  Ameri- 
can Standard  Version. 

The  discussion  on  "The  Humor  of  the  Bible" 
is  largely  a  reprint  of  an  article  from  the  pen  of 
the  lecturer  which  appeared  several  years  ago 
in  the  Methodist  Review,  and  is  used  by  per- 
mission of  the  publishers. 


11 


CHAPTER  I 

THE  LITERARY  PRIMACY  OF  THE  BIBLE 

"SURELY  in  vain  the  net  is  spread  in  the 
sight  of  any  bird."  Nevertheless,  the  purpose 
of  these  lectures  must  be  frankly  avowed.  At 
the  risk  of  committing  a  strategic  blunder,  it 
must  be  confessed  at  the  outset  that  their  in- 
tention is  to  lure  those  who  receive  them  into 
reading  the  Bible  in  precisely  the  same  way 
they  would  peruse  any  other  literature  which 
they  desired  to  understand  and  enjoy. 

This  is  something  which  the  present  genera- 
tion of  Americans  is  not  extensively  doing. 
The  Bible  is  still  assigned  the  supreme  place 
in  the  literature  of  the  world  by  those  who 
are  most  competent  to  judge.  When  men  of 
letters  are  asked  to  name  the  books  which  have 
powerfully  affected  their  intellectual  develop- 
ment they  almost  invariably  mention  the  Bible. 
The  larger  number  of  our  colleges  and  uni- 
versities insist  on  placing  it  among  the  indis- 
pensable text-books  of  their  curricula.  Its 
general  and  particular  excellences  as  litera- 
ture, its  historical  significance,  its  influence 
upon  civilization,  the  reproductive  energy  it 

13 


14          THE  LITERARY  PRIMACY 

has  displayed  in  the  literatures  of  many  lands, 
its  supremacy  in  the  realm  of  ethics  and  reli- 
gion, make  it  requisite  to  any  sound  scheme  of 
culture.  The  conviction  of  Dr.  Eliphalet  Nott 
has  never  been  discredited — "Men  cannot  be 
well  educated  without  the  Bible."  Perhaps 
there  was  never  a  period  in  modern  times  when 
the  Scriptures  were  so  intensively  studied  by 
numerous  small  groups  of  learners,  or  when  in 
our  own  country  there  existed  so  great  a 
quantity  of  classes  or  companies  organized 
specifically  for  the  examination  of  biblical 
teaching  as  the  present.  Yet  something  has 
happened  to  the  Bible  in  the  last  few  decades 
which  has  retired  it  from  that  position  as  a 
book  for  popular  reading  which  it  formerly 
held,  and  which  it  is  sure  to  occupy  again  when 
a  clearer  apprehension  of  its  worth  reaches 
the  masses  of  mankind.  Although  the  Bible 
is  the  "best  seller"  in  the  book  market,  it  is 
probably  the  least  read  of  any  book  in  the 
world  in  proportion  to  the  number  of  copies 
produced  and  owned.  What  Spurgeon  said 
of  England  may  be  as  appropriately  uttered 
with  respect  to  America:  "The  Bible  is  in 
every  house,  but  in  many  the  dust  on  it  is  so 
thick  that  you  might  write  on  it:  Damna- 
tion." Among  the  contemptuous  designations 
applied  to  the  Oxford  Methodists  constituting 
the  Holy  Club  was  that  of  "Bible  Moths." 


OF  THE  BIBLE  15 

Comparatively  few  persons  in  any  sect  deserve 
such  an  epithet  now. 

The  elder  Disraeli,  in  his  Curiosities  of 
Literature,  referring  to  the  hostility  of  the 
Roman  Catholic  authorities  toward  granting 
the  laity  freedom  to  scan  the  Scriptures, 
speaks  of  a  Spanish  author  as  affirming  that 
"if  a  person  should  come  to  his  bishop  to  ask 
for  leave  to  read  the  Bible,  with  the  best  inten- 
tion, the  bishop  should  answer  him  from  Matt. 
20.  22,  'You  know  not  what  you  ask.7  "  In 
our  day,  on  the  other  hand,  it  is  required  that 
we  should  constantly  admonish  the  people  to 
whom  the  Bible  is  an  unfamiliar  book,  "You 
do  not  know  what  you  are  losing." 

"I  may  not,"  says  Father  Eustace  in  Scott's 
The  Monastery,  concerning  a  copy  of  the  Scrip- 
tures, "so  far  forget  the  living  in  my  cares  for 
the  dead,  as  to  leave  behind  me  that  book, 
which  is  to  the  ignorant  what,  to  our  first 
parents,  the  tree  of  knowledge  of  good  and  evil 
unhappily  proved — excellent  indeed  in  itself, 
but  fatal  because  used  by  those  to  whom  it  is 
prohibited." 

At  the  end  of  the  twelfth  century  Pope 
Innocent  III,  when  denying  the  privilege  of 
Bible  reading  to  the  laity,  uses  the  unap- 
proachable sanctity  of  Mount  Sinai  as  a  figure 
representing  the  holiness  of  the  Scriptures 
which  must  not  be  profaned  by  the  touch  of 


16          THE  LITERARY  PRIMACY 

a  secular  finger,  quoting  for  his  purpose  from 
Exod.  19.  12,  13:  "Take  heed  to  yourselves, 
that  ye  go  not  up  into  the  mount,  or  touch  the 
border  of  it:  whosoever  toucheth  the  mount 
shall  be  surely  put  to  death;  no  hand  shall 
touch  him,  but  he  shall  surely  be  stoned,  or 
shot  through;  whether  it  be  beast  or  man,  he 
shall  not  live."  A  life  punishment  should 
await  the  layman  guilty  of  a  sacrilegious 
appropriation  of  the  Scriptures. 

The  spirit  of  our  age  is  such,  at  least  in 
America,  that  if  the  Bible  were  a  prohibited 
book,  the  demand  for  it  would  be  enormous, 
and  the  clandestine  searching  of  its  contents 
would  be  one  of  the  most  frequent  diversions 
of  the  young.  But  as  even  the  Roman  Church 
has  loosened  its  restrictions  regarding  Bible 
reading  by  its  communicants  in  many  coun- 
tries, going  so  far  as  to  provide  in  some  in- 
stances translations  in  the  vernacular  of  the 
people  for  their  convenience,  and  as  there  are 
no  other  civil  or  ecclesiastical  sovereignties  in 
civilized  lands  forbidding  the  use  of  the  Scrip- 
tures to  the  unlearned  or  uninitiated,  this 
provocative  to  acquaintance  with  the  Bible  is 
lacking.  Some  different  appeal  to  the  inquisi- 
tiveness  of  the  human  mind  is  required,  and 
among  persons  of  refined  taste  an  adequate 
one  should  be  found  in  the  literary  primacy  of 
the  book  itself. 


OF  THE  BIBLE  17 

The  very  ease  with  which  the  Bible  may 
now  be  obtained  betrays  many  people  into  the 
mistake  of  neglecting  a  literature  wrhich  they 
would  take  great  pains  to  know,  if  it  were 
difficult  to  acquire;  just  as  certain  wonders 
in  nature  are  disregarded  by  those  living 
nearest  them,  while  travelers  come  thousands 
of  miles  for  the  privilege  of  beholding  them. 
In  the  days  of  primitive  Christianity,  as 
Chrysostom  relates,  women  and  children  often 
carried  the  Gospels  or  other  parts  of  the  New 
Testament  hung  around  their  necks,  and  these 
they  frequently  consulted.  The  rich  treasured 
in  their  libraries  fine  transcripts  of  the  sacred 
writings  on  vellum.  Complete  copies  of  the 
Scriptures  were  exceedingly  rare  until  the  art 
of  printing  became  known.  Children  were, 
therefore,  encouraged  to  commit  to  memory 
extended  passages,  and  Christians  were  con- 
tinually engaged  in  copying  portions  of  the 
Bible  and  transmitting  them  to  others.  Even 
after  the  printing  press  had  multiplied  the 
possibility  of  widely  diffusing  the  knowledge 
of  the  Scriptures,  and  translations  had  been 
made  into  various  tongues  of  Europe,  the 
circulation  of  the  Bible  was  limited  not  only 
by  the  cost  of  securing  copies,  but  also  by 
ecclesiastical  interdicts.  When  William  Tyn- 
dale  was  still  a  youth  and  a  tutor  in  a  country 
family,  one  day  during  a  warm  discussion  with 


18          THE  LITERARY  PRIMACY 

some  priests  at  his  employer's  table,  lie  ex- 
claimed that  if  God  spared  his  life,  ere  many 
years  he  would  cause  a  plowboy  to  know  more 
of  the  Scriptures  than  did  the  Pope.  This 
promise  he  kept,  but  much  time  elapsed  before 
his  prediction  was  fulfilled.  Then  the  book 
came  as  a  novelty  and  was  read  with  avidity. 
Now  it  is  a  commonplace  in  every  collection 
of  books,  and  is  in  consequence  neglected. 

Many  persons  who  in  childhood  received 
some  fragmentary  instruction  in  the  Bible 
retain  certain  vague  reminiscences  of  their 
former  partial  acquaintance  with  its  contents, 
and  these  they  venture  to  substitute  for  an 
actual  familiarity  with  the  volume.  The  result 
is  a  bewildering  mass  of  ludicrous  blunders 
whenever  they  are  rash  enough  to  allude  to 
events  and  persons  recorded  in  the  Scriptures, 
and  the  disclosure  of  pathetic  ignorance  of  the 
teachings  of  the  Bible  whenever  they  under- 
take to  support  their  opinions  by  citations 
from  its  pages.  Clever  Benjamin  Franklin 
foisted  the  book  of  Ruth  upon  some  cultivated 
gentlemen  at  the  court  of  France  as  a  fine 
bit  of  Oriental  literature  he  had  unearthed, 
and  then  confounded  his  auditors  by  pointing 
to  its  place  in  the  Bible,  a  work  which  they 
affected  to  despise.  He  practiced  a  like  artifice 
with  the  prayer  of  Habakkuk,  and  deceived 
certain  persons  with  an  alleged  fifty-first  chap- 


OF  THE  BIBLE  19 

ter  of  Genesis,  which  was  Ms  own  invention. 
A  Harvard  undergraduate  wrote  on  an  inquiry 
slip  in  the  library,  "Where  can  I  find  the  story 
of  Sisera  and  Jael?"  The  librarian  wrote 
underneath,  "In  the  Bible,  you  heathen."  But 
the  number  of  pagans  in  Christian  America  is 
very  considerable  if  people  are  to  be  measured 
by  that  judgment.  It  is  said  that  a  bright 
young  Cambridge  man  was  asked  what  connec- 
tion he  could  remember  between  the  Old  Testa- 
ment and  the  New  Testament.  He  answered 
that  he  could  recall  but  one,  namely,  the  fact 
that  "Peter  cut  off  the  ear  of  the  prophet 
Malachi."  A  Boston  alderman  boasted  that 
he  had  read  the  whole  Bible  through,  "from 
Genesis  to  Deuteronomy,"  a  feat  which,  if  he 
had  actually  performed  it,  probably  placed 
him  on  an  eminence  among  his  fellows.  It 
would  be  possible  to  fill  many  pages  with  such 
illustrations  of  the  preposterous  misinforma- 
tion about  the  Scriptures  which  even  intelli- 
gent and,  in  other  respects,  scholarly  indi- 
viduals carry  around  in  their  heads.  The  sad 
truth  is  that  if  a  long  array  of  these  examples 
were  presented  to  the  average  audience,  a  large 
proportion  of  them  would  not  be  recognized  as 
absurd  because  their  deviation  from  the  text 
would  not  be  detected. 

In   partial   explanation   of   this    sorry   un- 
familiarity  with  the  Bible  it  must  be  remem- 


20          THE  LITERARY  PRIMACY 

bered  that  there  is  less  serious  reading  of 
any  kind  among  people  in  general  than  was 
formerly  the  case.  The  astonishing  quantity 
of  fictitious  literature  and  of  newspapers  and 
other  periodicals  devoured  by  the  public  has 
crowded  out  those  classic  books  of  devotion, 
religious  biography,  and  church  history  in 
which  our  forefathers  used  to  delight  them- 
selves. Even  those  works  which  have  been 
produced  in  modern  times  with  a  view  to  meet- 
ing the  current  spiritual  needs  of  the  people, 
and  which  are  seductively  framed  to  suit  the 
popular  taste,  have  but  a  temporary  vogue  and 
soon  lumber  the  shelves  of  second-hand  book- 
stores. Religious  journalism  is  making  an 
increasingly  difficult  fight  to  maintain  an  ex- 
tensive influence.  In  this  decline  of  serious 
reading  the  Bible  inevitably  shares.  It  is 
recognized  as  essentially  a  product  of  religion, 
and  in  our  time  it  has  gradually  come  to  be 
regarded  as  a  book  of  the  Church,  and  there- 
fore to  be  cherished  chiefly  by  those  who  are 
intrusted  with  the  custody  of  religious  institu- 
tions or  who  are  aspirants  for  sainthood.  This 
is  a  fundamental  error,  but  it  must  have  its 
reckoning  among  the  causes  which  have  made 
the  Bible  a  neglected  book.  A  volume  which 
contains  essays,  epigrams,  sonnets,  stories, 
philosophical  treatises,  histories,  sermons, 
legal  documents,  dramas,  love  songs,  national 


OF  THE  BIBLE  21 

anthems,  war  ballads,  letters,  orations,  hymns 
for  defeat  and  triumph,  pilgrim  songs,  chants 
with  which  parties  of  kinsmen  have  lightened 
the  weariness  of  journeys  to  great  feasts, 
riddles,  fanciful  acrostics,  and  indeed  every 
form  of  literary  expression  save  that  which 
may  be  designated  as  technically  scientific 
and  critical,  surely  does  not  deserve  to  be 
ignored  by  persons  in  quest  of  sound  literature 
solely  because  it  is  suffused  with  the  atmos- 
phere of  religion. 

There  is  an  old  story  told  by  St.  Jerome  of 
himself  which  will  bear  repeating  in  this  con- 
nection. Though  he  was  an  ardent  defender 
of  simple  Christianity,  he  was  also  greatly 
enamored  of  classical  eloquence.  He  had  pored 
over  Vergil  and  Cicero  and  other  pagan 
writers  with  rare  gratification.  One  night  he 
dreamed  that  he  had  been  hastily  summoned 
before  the  bar  of  Heaven.  "Who  are  vou?" 

i« 

he  was  asked.  "I  am  a  Christian,"  he  an- 
swered. "Thou  liest;  thou  art  a  Ciceronian," 
sternly  observed  the  Judge,  and  at  once  the 
saint  was  turned  over  to  servitors  who  beat 
him  unmercifully  until  he  agreed  never  to 
browse  in  a  pagan  book  again.  A  similar 
vision  might  not  be  without  salutary  effect  if 
it  were  sent  to  some  of  the  religious  leaders 
of  our  own  day  who,  if  they  are  to  be  estimated 
by  their  writings  and  public  discourses,  have 


22          THE  LITERARY  PRIMACY 

a  deeper  interest  in  other  literature  than  that 
which  distinguishes  the  Bible.  It  cannot  be 
denied  that  a  part  of  the  people's  indifference 
to  the  Scriptures  is  attributable  to  the  paucity 
of  biblical  quotation  they  hear  from  the  pulpit, 
and  the  infrequency  with  which  preachers  laud 
the  beauty  and  vigor  of  the  sacred  writings. 

But  whatever  may  be  the  reasons  which 
account  for  the  obvious  decline  in  popular 
attachment  to  the  Bible — and  there  are  many 
which  need  not  now  engage  our  attention — the 
case  stands  to-day  practically  as  Professor 
Richard  G.  Moulton  has  described  it : 

We  have  done  almost  everything  that  is  possible  with 
these  Hebrew  and  Greek  writings.  We  have  overlaid 
them,  clause  by  clause,  with  exhaustive  commentaries; 
we  have  translated  them,  revised  the  translations,  and 
quarreled  over  the  revisions;  we  have  discussed  authen- 
ticity and  inspiration,  and  suggested  textual  history  with 
colored  type;  we  have  mechanically  divided  the  whole 
into  chapters  and  verses,  and  sought  texts  to  memorize 
and  quote;  we  have  epitomized  into  handbooks  and 
extracted  school  lessons;  we  have  recast  from  the 
feminine  point  of  view,  and  even  from  the  standpoint  of 
the  next  century.  There  is  yet  one  thing  left  to  do  with 
the  Bible:  simply  to  read  it. 


The  reasons  which  should  induce  us  to  read 
the  Bible  are  many  and  various.  For  the  pres- 
ent we  may  confine  ourselves  to  those  which  lie 
in  the  plane  of  our  common  literary  interest. 


OP  THE  BIBLE  23 

For  the  moment  we  may  put  aside  all  con- 
sideration of  the  moral  and  spiritual  values 
inseparable  from  this  literature,  and  examine 
it  in  the  same  spirit  and  with  the  same  inten- 
tion that  would  mark  our  investigation  of  the 
masterpieces  of  any  other  great  people.  Let 
us  begin  on  a  lower  level  of  approach  than  our 
pious  ancestors  would  have  thought  compatible 
with  the  inherent  dignity  of  the  Holy  Scrip- 
tures. Aiming  to  attract  the  least  spiritual 
minds  possessed  of  a  taste  for  literature  to  the 
noblest  books  ever  written,  we  need  not  hesi- 
tate to  avail  ourselves  of  any  legitimate  point 
of  contact  which  will  serve  that  purpose. 

The  late  Professor  Harris  of  Yale  used  to 
give  an  account  of  a  German  student  whom  a 
young  American  met  in  one  of  the  great  Euro- 
pean universities.  He  was  deeply  engrossed 
in  archaeological  studies,  but  he  was  an  agnos- 
tic in  religion,  and  could  not  be  induced  to 
read  the  Bible  because,  he  asserted,  there  was 
nothing  of  interest  to  him  in  its  pages.  The 
American  finally  called  his  attention  to  the 
description  of  the  building  of  the  Tabernacle. 
It  immediately  captivated  his  imagination, 
and  he  sat  up  late  many  nights  studying  it 
with  consuming  interest.  It  is  possible  that 
among  those  to  whom  these  lectures  are 
brought  there  are  some  who  have  thrust  the 
Bible  away  from  their  tables  as  heavy  or 


24          THE  LITERARY  PRIMACY 

archaic  literature,  possessing  no  interest  for 
any  but  theologians,  antiquarians  and  a  few 
devout  persons  who  still  hold  to  it  as  the 
source  of  highest  inspiration  because  of 
the  hallowed  traditions  which  attach  to  it. 
For  the  sake  of  such  we  may  properly  abandon 
temporarily  the  old  injunction  to  search  the 
Scriptures  for  the  spiritual  profit  to  be  derived 
therefrom,  and  persuade  them  to  turn  back  to 
the  Bible  for  its  literary  treasures,  with  the 
assurance  that,  having  begun  with  its  surface 
values,  they  will  proceed  to  a  fuller  acquaint- 
ance with  its  marvelous  contents,  and  ulti- 
mately to  a  discernment  of  their  profound 
significance  for  life. 

That  there  should  be  any  reluctance  to 
pursue  such  a  policy  is  evidence  of  the  abnor- 
mal position  in  literature  which  has  been 
assigned  to  the  Bible,  and  reveals  one  of  the 
most  influential  reasons  for  the  decline  of  its 
popularity  as  a  volume  to  be  read  for  its  own 
sake.  Too  great  veneration  cannot  be  given 
to  the  Scriptures,  but  to  envelop  them  with  an 
artificial  sanctity  is  to  lessen  their  appeal  to 
the  intellectual  appetencies  of  humanity.  The 
effect  is  akin  to  that  which  results  from  plac- 
ing religion  in  a  category  by  itself,  occupying 
a  mere  department  of  life,  quite  apart  from 
other  areas  of  man's  thought  and  activity, 
though  it  ought  to  be  conceived  as  vital  to  the 


OF  THE  BIBLE  25 

whole  of  human  experience.  In  a  similar 
fashion,  because  it  is  primarily  a  body  of  reli- 
gious literature,  the  Bible  is  often  assumed 
to  fill  a  comparatively  narrow  function,  where- 
as for  those  who  are  familiar  with  its  writings 
it  holds  an  interest  which  touches  every  phase 
of  man's  labor  and  love.  As  a  corrective  to 
such  misapprehensions  the  words  of  Emerson 
are  worthy  of  reflection :  "People  imagine  that 
the  place  which  the  Bible  holds  in  the  world 
it  owes  to  miracles.  It  owes  it  simply  to  the 
fact  that  it  came  out  of  a  profounder  depth  of 
thought  than  any  other  book." 

The  scientist  Faraday  was  accustomed  to 
say  that  highly  cultivated  audiences  might  be 
regarded  as  knowing  nothing  about  the  subject 
which  the  lecturer  was  discussing.  It  ought 
not  to  be  esteemed  an  unwarranted  act  of 
effrontery,  therefore,  to  announce  that,  apart 
from  all  its  moral  and  religious  qualities,  the 
Bible  is  a  deeply  interesting  volume,  and  to 
proceed  to  give  the  proofs  of  that  fact,  as 
though  it  had  never  before  been  declared  in 
the  hearing  of  men. 

Those  Avho  imagine  the  Bible  is  a  dull  book 
are  simply  unacquainted  with  the  wonderful 
variety  of  its  contents.  It  is  true  that  its 
genealogical  tables,  the  Levitical  and  priestly 
system  of  ceremonies  and  services  which  it 
describes,  and  other  racial,  statistical,  and 


26          THE  LITERARY  PRIMACY 

didactic  matter  characteristic  of  the  Old  Testa- 
ment, have  no  elements  of  popular  interest. 
Yet  even  these  arid  stretches  of  biblical  terri- 
tory, when  properly  interpreted  in  relation  to 
the  history  of  a  great  people,  are  not  destitute 
of  refreshment  for  minds  qualified  by  natural 
inclination  or  scholarly  equipment  to  appre- 
ciate them.  Mere  lists  of  names  and  tables  of 
figures  may  be  fascinating  when  their  true 
bearings  are  understood.  We  are  told  that 
Richard  Lynch  Cotton,  Provost  of  Worcester 
College,  Oxford,  would  insist  on  scrutinizing 
with  fidelity  even  such  a  dry  production  as 
Leviticus,  on  the  ground  "that  there  is  always 
something  in  every  chapter  which  no  one  can 
afford  to  let  go  unread."  Taken  as  a  whole, 
after  making  the  few  deductions  intimated, 
the  Bible  is  of  perennial  interest  to  all  classes 
of  persons  who  have  a  first-hand  knowledge  of 
what  it  contains.  Its  stories  take  a  strong 
hold  upon  childhood — and  there  is  no  better 
test  of  the  vitality  of  literature  than  that.  The 
biographical  tales,  of  the  Old  Testament,  in- 
cluding the  portraitures  of  Joseph,  Moses, 
Samson,  David,  Elijah,  Daniel,  Jonah  and  the 
rest,  are  unsurpassed  as  to  living  interest  in 
any  ancient  or  modern  literature.  The  wars 
of  Israel  and  Judah  make  as  stirring  narra- 
tives as  any  lover  of  military  annals  could 
wish.  So  full  of  the  militant  spirit  are  they 


OF  THE  BIBLE  27 

that  good  Bishop  Ulfilas,  who  translated  the 
Bible  for  the  Goths  in  the  middle  of  the  fourth 
century,  omitted  the  books  of  the  Kings  and 
Samuel  because  he  feared  they  would  unduly 
stimulate  the  warlike  ardor  of  his  people. 
President  Bartlett,  of  Dartmouth  College,  in 
one  of  his  baccalaureate  addresses  said : 

The  migration  of  Abram  from  Ur  of  the  Chaldees  was 
a  more  momentous  event  than  the  fabled  voyage  of 
yEneas  or  the  colonizing  of  Carthage.  In  comparison 
with  the  Exodus,  the  Anabasis  was  a  trivial  incident. 
Joshua's  subjugation  of  Canaan  was  a  great  military 
movement,  fraught  with  more  far-reaching  consequences 
than  the  Norman  conquest.  Jerusalem,  the  city  of 
twenty-seven  sieges,  has  as  weird  a  history  as  any  other 
city  on  the  globe,  and  the  Jewish  race  a  vitality  unparal- 
leled and  unique.  The  Galilean  Sea,  but  thirteen  miles 
in  length,  has  witnessed  events  more  marvelous  than 
the  great  and  classic  Mediterranean.  What  are  the 
laws  of  Solon  or  Lycurgus  beside  that  decalogue  and 
the  laws  of  Moses — a  lawgiver,  says  Milman,  "who  has 
exercised  a  more  extensive  and  permanent  influence 
over  the  destinies  of  mankind  than  any  other  individual 
in  the  history  of  the  world." 

"The  principal  books  of  the  Old  Testament," 
said  Matthew  Arnold,  "are  things  to  be  deeply 
enjoyed."  The  truth  of  this  declaration  will 
be  increasingly  evident  as  the  reader  acquaints 
himself  with  these  noble  memorials  of  departed 
genius. 

No  one  can  question  the  charm  of  the  New 
Testament  narratives.  The  storv  of  Jesus  of 

V 

Nazareth  never  abates  its  fascination  for  the 


28          THE  LITERAEY  PRIMACY 

human  mind  and  heart.  His  miracles  and 
parables  render  the  Gospels  a  library  of  won- 
ders. The  performances  of  his  disciples  are 
fraught  with  deathless  interest.  The  first 
weeks  and  months  of  the  infant  church  are 
replete  with  romance.  The  lives  of  the  apostles 
are  brimful  of  stirring  adventure  and  achieve- 
ment. The  travels  and  public  services  of  Paul, 
the  Roman  citizen  and  Christian  missioner,  are 
big  with  surprise  and  rich  in  incident.  Taken 
in  conjunction  with  the  historic  occasions 
which  incited  them,  the  epistles  are  of  engross- 
ing interest.  The  Bible  as  a  whole,  from  the 
drama  of  creation,  with  which  it  opens,  to  the 
mysterious  apocalypse  on  Patmos,  with  which 
it  closes,  is  the  most  enthralling,  to  him  who 
knows  how  to  read  it,  of  all  the  literatures  that 
have  issued  from  the  spirit  of  the  human  race. 
It  was  the  dictum  of  Voltaire  that  in  writing 
all  styles  are  good  that  are  not  tiresome.  The 
marked  characteristic  of  the  Bible  writers  is 
their  naturalness  and  simplicity.  They  betray 
no  artificiality.  They  were  not  voluntarily  or 
consciously  following  any  canons  of  literary 
art.  They  were  not,  with  the  possible  excep- 
tion of  the  poets,  trying  to  conform  rigidly  to 
principles  of  literary  construction  which  had 
been  set  for  them  by  their  predecessors,  or  in- 
vented by  themselves  for  their  guidance.  There 
are  no  writers  in  the  world  more  naive  than 


OF  THE  BIBLE  29 

they.  The  most  casual  reader  will  be  impressed 
that  these  authors  were  not  straining  after 
effects.  This  alone  is  a  quality  which  inevita- 
bly endears  them  to  humanity.  John  Bur- 
roughs has  pertinently  said,  "The  literary 
value  of  the  Bible  doubtless  arises  largely  from 
its  elemental  character."  As  men  of  strength 
who  are  untrammeled  by  the  adornments  of  a 
formal  culture  will  arrest  attention  and  evoke 
affection  by  the  native  solidity  of  their  charac- 
ters, as  was  preeminently  the  fact  with  Abra- 
ham Lincoln,  so  literature  which  embodies 
without  an  artificial  garniture  the  great  ideas 
that  have  haunted  the  souls  of  men  in  all  ages 
will  surely  seize  and  retain  human  interest. 
The  simplicity  of  the  Bible  writers  is  not 
marred  by  childishness,  otherwise  it  would  fall 
short  of  that  grasp  upon  the  imagination 
which  belongs  to  elemental  literature.  A  com- 
parison of  the  first  chapter  of  Genesis  with  the 
absurd  cosmogonies  devised  by  pagan  minds 
will  suffice  to  illustrate  the  superiority  of  the 
primitive  literature  of  the  Hebrews,  in  both 
style  and  matter,  over  that  produced  in  the 
antiquity  of  any  other  race.  It  is  only  our 
inveterate  habit  of  approaching  the  Bible  with 
the  prepossession  that  it  is  not  literature,  but 
a  treasury  of  divine  oracles,  which  prevents 
us  from  deriving  that  intellectual  pleasure 
from  its  perusal  which  it  is  calculated  to  in- 


30          THE  LITERARY  PRIMACY 

spire  when  freed  from  the  bondage  of  tradition. 
Of  the  Gospel  of  Matthew  Robert  Louis 
Stevenson  said,  "I  believe  it  would  startle  and 
move  anyone,  if  he  could  make  a  certain  effort 
of  imagination,  and  read  it  freshly  like  a  book, 
not  droningly  and  dully  like  a  portion  of  the 
Bible."  There  can  be  no  doubt  that  whoever 
goes  to  the  business  of  reading  almost  any 
portion  of  the  Scriptures  with  the  zest  which 
he  feels  necessary  for  the  study  of  any  other 
literature  will  find  the  Bible  an  unending 
source  of  satisfaction. 

"My  experience,"  said  Horace  Bushnell,  "is 
that  the  Bible  is  dull  when  I  am  dull.  When 
I  am  really  alive,  and  set  in  upon  the  text  with 
a  tidal  pressure  of  living  affinities,  it  opens,  it 
multiplies  discoveries,  and  reveals  depths  even 
faster  than  I  can  note  them."  Nevertheless, 
it  must  be  admitted  that  the  Bible  is  not  in 
all  its  parts  easy  reading,  even  when  an  alert 
mind  is  concentrated  upon  its  pages.  Its  docu- 
ments were  not  composed  primarily  for  enter- 
tainment, though  many  of  them  are  replete 
with  an  interest  independent  of  their  religious 
quality.  In  answer  to  the  charge  that  his 
writings  were  obscure,  Robert  Browning  once 
said,  "I  never  designedly  tried  to  puzzle  people, 
as  some  of  my  critics  have  supposed.  On  the 
other  hand,  I  never  pretended  to  offer  such 
literature  as  should  be  a  substitute  for  a  cigar 


OF  THE  BIBLE  31 

or  a  game  of  dominoes  for  an  idle  man."  So 
it  must  be  apparent  to  the  most  casual  reader 
that  the  Apostle  Paul,  to  use  one  illustration 
out  of  several  which  might  be  adduced,  was 
not  writing  to  beguile  the  tedium  of  the  audi- 
ences who  were  to  listen  to  certain  of  his  pro- 
found epistles.  In  some  instances  he  wras  deal- 
ing with  vast  themes  in  a  subtle  philosophic 
fashion  unquestionably  difficult  for  persons  of 
humble  intelligence  to  fathom,  and  which  have 
provoked  an  imposing  quantity  of  interpreta- 
tive literature,  such  as  commentaries  and  theo- 
logical treatises.  Several  of  the  sacred  writ- 
ings in  both  collections  of  the  Bible  must  be 
allowed  to  fall  under  this  differentiation.  Yet 
these  are  books  which  will  exercise  a  powerful 
spell  over  certain  minds.  M.  de  Saci  of  Port 
Royal,  for  example,  took  special  delight  in  the 
Epistles  of  St.  Paul,  had  them  bound  sepa- 
ratelv,  and  alwavs  carried  them  with  him. 

t/   7  i/ 

"Let  them  do  what  they  like  with  me,"  he  said, 
anticipating  imprisonment  in  the  Bastille,  "let 
them  put  me  where  they  please ;  I  fear  nothing 
if  only  I  can  have  my  St.  Paul  with  me." 

Interest  in  the  Bible  as  literature  is  deep- 
ened by  recognizing  that  it  is  a  unique  collec- 
tion of  writings  which  it  is  an  inaccuracy  to 
call  a  book.  It  acquired  this  designation 
through  the  fact  that  its  several  parts  were 
brought  together  into  a  single  volume,  though 


32          THE  LITERARY  PRIMACY 

it  is  an  accumulation  of  sixty-six  separate 
books.  This  compilation  was  not  referred  to 
as  a  book  until  a  comparatively  late  period, 
though  the  name  Bible  arose  in  the  fourth 
century,  when  Chrysostom  called  the  collection 
Biblia,  a  neuter  plural  which  in  the  thirteenth 
century  in  the  Western  Church  was  mistaken 
for  a  feminine  singular,  and  thus  gave  us  the 
name  Bible.  St.  Jerome,  who  died  in  420  A.  D., 
called  the  Scriptures  a  Divine  Library;  and 
Edmund  Burke  said  they  were  "An  infinite 
collection  of  the  most  varied  and  most  vener- 
able literature."  We  are  told  that  by  a  legal 
enactment  in  England  in  1516  the  Bible  re- 
ceived the  designation  of  Bibliotheca,  which 
signifies  a  library.  The  story  of  the  bringing 
together  of  these  documents  into  one  authorita- 
tive repository  is  most  interesting,  but  need 
not  be  rehearsed  in  this  connection. 

It  is  of  the  utmost  importance,  however,  that 
we  should  realize  that  the  Bible  consists  of 
what  has  survived  out  of  a  much  wider  litera- 
ture. The  writers  who  have  found  their  way 
into  the  Scriptures  refer  to  a  variety  of  lost 
books.  Many  of  these  were  used  by  the  com- 
pilers of  the  Pentateuch  and  the  chroniclers 
of  the  historical  books.  Among  them  are  The 
Acts  of  Solomon,  The  Book  of  the  Chronicles 
of  King  David,  The  Books  of  the  Chronicles 
of  the  Kings  of  Judah,  The  Books  of  Nathan 


OP  THE  BIBLE  33 

the  Prophet  and  of  Gad  the  Seer,  The  Prophecy 
of  Ahijah  the  Shilonite,  The  Visions  of  Iddo 
the  Seer,  The  Book  of  the  Wars  of  Jehovah, 
The  Book  of  Jasher,  The  Histories  of  She- 
maiah  the  Prophet,  and  The  Acts  of  Uzziah. 
The  apocryphal  books  form  a  distinct  collec- 
tion which  were  not  admitted  to  the  canon  of 
Scripture  because  of  their  alleged  inferiority, 
though  several  of  them  reveal  remarkable  ex- 
cellence. But  beyond  the  perished  books,  the 
names  of  which  have  been  preserved,  and 
quotations  from  which  occur  in  our  Bible, 
existed  still  more  ancient  and  simpler  forms 
of  literature,  to  some  of  which  references  are 
detected  by  scholars,  and  from  all  of  which,  as 
long  as  they  were  extant,  later  writers  might 
take  what  they  required  or  thought  useful. 
These  included  old  Semitic  legends,  many  of 
which  had  not  been  reduced  to  writing,  ballads 
and  folk-songs,  camp  stories,  historical  notes, 
codes  of  ancient  laws,  collections  of  proverbs, 
oral  tales  of  the  patriarchs,  inscriptions  and 
other  memorabilia.  Much  of  this  could  not  be 
accurately  classified  as  literature,  but  it  pro- 
vided the  substance  out  of  which  literature 
was  evolved.  A  striking  illustration  of  the 
disappearance  of  literary  materials  which 
formerly  existed  among  the  Hebrews  is  found 
in  1  Kings  4.  32,  where  it  is  recorded  that 
Solomon  wrote  a  thousand  and  five  songs, 


34          THE  LITERARY  PRIMACY 

though  there  are  but  two  remaining  which  are 
credited  to  him.  We  can  scarcely  doubt  that 
in  the  survivals  of  Hebrew  literature  which 
have  descended  to  us  in  the  Bible  we  have  the 
noblest  intellectual  products  of  an  ancient  and 
wonderful  people,  and  devout  minds  are  confi- 
dent that  their  preservation  has  been  due  to 
the  supervision  exercised  over  them  by  Divine 
Providence.  Nor  can  we  fail  to  discern  that, 
in  the  main,  the  determination  of  the  books 
deserving  a  place  in  the  Holy  Scriptures  was 
by  an  elective  process  which  united  a  refined 
literary  judgment  to  deep  spiritual  intuition. 

In  these  survivals  of  a  more  extensive  litera- 
ture we  have  an  unexampled  array  of  beauty 
and  strength.  A  careful  study  of  these  writ- 
ings will  convince  the  lover  of  humane  letters 
that  William  Watson  was  not  far  from  sheer 
fact  when  he  said  that  "every  kind  of  literary 
magnificence  is  supremely  exemplified  in  the 
Bible,"  and  that  Sir  Thomas  Browne  was  not 
extravagant  when  he  declared  that,  even  if  the 
Scriptures  had  been  the  work  of  man  alone, 
they  would  have  been  "the  most  singular  and 
superlative  piece  that  hath  been  extant  since 
the  creation."  In  a  similar  strain  of  exalted 
praise  writes  Froude :  "The  Bible,  thoroughly 
known,  is  a  literature  of  itself,  the  rarest  and 
the  richest  in  all  departments  of  thought  or 
imagination  which  exists." 


OF  THE  BIBLE  35 

"Its  light,"  said  John  Henry  Newman, 
speaking  of  the  Bible,  "is  like  the  body  of 
heaven  in  its  clearness;  its  vastness  like  the 
bosom  of  the  sea ;  its  variety  like  the  scenes  of 
nature." 

"It  is  the  grandest  group  of  writings  in  the 
world,"  said  Ruskin,  "put  into  the  grandest 
languages  of  the  world,  translated  afterward 
into  every  language  in  the  Christian  world, 
and  is  the  guide  of  all  the  arts  and  acts  of  that 
world  which  have  been  noble,  fortunate,  and 
happy." 

"What  a  book!"  exclaimed  Heinrich  Heine. 
After  a  Sunday  of  intolerable  dullness  at 
Heligoland  he  took  up  the  Bible  in  despera- 
tion, as  he  records,  and  after  reading  it  for 
hours  to  his  edification  as  well  as  his  entertain- 
ment, he  breaks  forth  into  eulogy :  "Vast  and 
wide  as  the  world,  rooted  in  the  abvsses  of 

i/ 

creation,  and  towering  up  beyond  the  blue 
secrets  of  heaven!  Sunrise  and  sunset,  birth 
and  death,  promise  and  fulfillment,  the  whole 
drama  of  humanity,  are  all  in  this  book." 

II 

That  the  Bible  is  indispensable  in  any  educa- 
tional process  which  involves  the  higher  cul- 
ture of  the  human  mind  must  be  conceded,  if 
it  possesses  the  values  ascribed  to  it  by  the 


36          THE  LITERARY  PRIMACY 

men  of  genius  whose  laudations  have  just  been 
quoted.  This  is  indeed  a  function  which  the 
Bible  is  claimed  to  exercise  by  some  of  the 
most  reliable  exponents  of  literary  judgment. 
Goethe's  experience  is  noteworthy : 

When,  in  my  youth,  my  imagination,  ever  active,  bore 
me  away,  now  hither,  now  thither,  and  when  all  this 
blending  of  history  and  fable,  of  mythology  and  reli- 
gion, threatened  to  unsettle  my  mind,  gladly  then  did 
I  flee  toward  those  Eastern  countries.  I  buried  myself 
in  the  first  books  of  Moses,  and  there,  amidst  those  wan- 
dering tribes,  I  found  myself  at  once  in  the  grandest 
solitudes  and  in  the  grandest  societies. 

In  addressing  a  company  of  students, 
Charles  A.  Dana,  one  of  America's  greatest 
journalists,  said : 

Of  all  books,  the  most  indispensable  and  the  most  use- 
ful, the  one  whose  knowledge  is  the  most  effective,  is 
the  Bible.  ...  I  am  considering  it  now  not  as  a  religious 
book,  but  as  a  manual  of  utility,  of  professional  prepara- 
tion and  professional  use  for  a  journalist.  There  is  per- 
haps no  book  whose  style  is  more  suggestive  and  more 
instructive,  from  which  you  learn  more  directly  that 
sublime  simplicity  which  never  exaggerates,  which 
recounts  the  greatest  events  with  solemnity,  of  course, 
but  without  sentimentality  or  affectation,  none  which 
you  open  with  such  confidence  and  lay  down  with  such 
reverence. 

As  a  child  John  Buskin  was  drilled  everv 

tt 

day  in  reading  or  reciting  the  Scriptures,  and 
this  process  was  continued  until  he  went  to 
Oxford.  He  prints  the  list  of  chapters  which 


OF  THE  BIBLE  37 

his  mother  required  him  to  commit  to  memory, 
and  "with  which/7  he  says,  "thus  learned,  she 
established  my  soul  in  life/"  adding  the  follow- 
ing: 

And  truly,  though  I  have  picked  up  the  elements  of  a 
little  further  knowledge — in  mathematics,  meteorology, 
and  the  like,  in  after  life — and  owe  not  a  little  to 
the  teaching  of  many  people,  this  maternal  installation 
of  my  mind  in  the  property  of  chapters  I  count  very 
confidently  the  most  precious,  and,  on  the  whole,  the 
one  essential  part  of  all  my  education. 

Xot  less  impressive  are  the  words  of  Charles 
Dudley  Warner: 

•- 

Wholly  apart  from  its  religious  or  from  its  ethical 
value,  the  Bible  is  the  one  book  that  no  intelligent 
person  who  wishes  to  come  into  contact  with  the  world 
of  thought  and  to  share  the  ideas  of  the  great  minds 
of  the  Christian  era  can  afford  to  be  ignorant  of.  All 
modern  literature  and  all  art  are  permeated  with  it. 
There  is  scarcely  a  great  work  in  the  language  that  can 
be  fully  understood  and  enjoyed  without  this  knowledge, 
so  full  is  it  of  allusions  and  illustrations  from  the  Bible. 
This  is  true  of  fiction,  of  poetry,  of  economic  and  philo- 
sophic works,  and  also  of  the  scientific  and  even  agnostic 
treatises.  ...  It  is  in  itself  almost  a  liberal  education, 
as  many  great  masters  in  literature  have  testified. 

What  this  author  savs  is  amply  confirmed 

t  JT      «, 

by  an  examination  of  English  literature,  to  go 
no  farther.  We  are  not  aware  how  extensive 
is  the  influence  of  the  Bible  upon  our  foremost 
writers  until  we  have  carefully  pondered  the 
works  of  such  poets  as  Spenser,  Shakespeare, 
Milton,  Pope,  Scott,  Cowper,  Wordsworth, 


38          THE  LITEEAEY  PRIMACY 

Tennyson,  Young,  the  Brownings,  Longfellow 
and  others,  and  of  such  prose  writers  as  Bacon, 
Addison,  Johnson,  Macaulay,  Carlyle,  Irving, 
Buskin,  Lowell,  and  many  more.  Spenser,  we 
are  told,  studied  the  prophetic  writings  before 
he  wrote  his  Faerie  Queene.  Lord  Bacon  has 
seventy  allusions  to  the  Scriptures  in  twenty- 
four  of  his  essays.  In  Bishop  Charles  Words- 
worth's book  on  Shakespeare's  Knowledge  and 
Use  of  the  Bible  allusions  or  quotations  in 
thirty-seven  plays  are  indicated,  a  fact  of  great 
significance  when  it  is  remembered  that  Shake- 
speare died  only  four  years  after  the  King 
James  Version  was  published  in  full.  There 
are  more  than  one  hundred  allusions  to  the 
Bible  in  Mrs.  Browning's  Aurora  Leigh.  A 
careful  student  of  Tennyson  has  asserted  that 
there  are  nearly  three  hundred  direct  refer- 
ences to  the  Bible  in  his  poems.  By  actual 
count  upward  of  three  hundred  and  thirty 
references  to  the  Bible  have  been  found  in 
works  of  Longfellow.  An  industrious  man  has 
reckoned  that  about  five  thousand  Scripture 
quotations  and  allusions  are  to  be  found  in  the 
writings  of  Ruskin,  who  says  that  to  the  disci- 
pline of  his  early  years  in  the  Bible  he  owes 
"the  best  part  of  my  taste  in  literature,  and, 
once  knowing  the  Bible  it  was  not  possible  for 
me  to  write  superficial  and  formal  English." 
Sir  Walter  Scott  had  the  Bible,  especially  the 


OF  THE  BIBLE  39 

Old  Testament,  almost  by  heart.  One  of  his 
novels,  The  Monastery,  is  a  perfect  storehouse 
of  Scripture.  He  is  said  generally  in  his  writ- 
ings to  have  quoted  the  Bible  from  memory. 
These  instances,  and  they  could  be  indefinitely 
extended,  give  force  to  the  saying  of  Samuel 
Taylor  Coleridge  that  "intense  study  of  the 
Bible  will  keep  any  writer  from  being  vulgar 
in  point  of  style."  Numerous  writers  who 
seldom  quote  or  make  direct  allusions  to  the 
Scriptures  obviously  have  been  greatly  affected 
by  them.  Of  such  is  Thomas  Carlyle,  who  in 
many  passages  writes  like  a  Hebrew  prophet, 
showing  unmistakable  evidences  of  deep  study 
of  the  Bible. 

It  is  almost  impossible  to  exaggerate  the 
influence  of  the  English  Bible  upon  our  lan- 
guage. Of  the  Authorized  Version  Huxley 
says :  "It  is  written  in  the  noblest  and  purest 
English,  and  abounds  in  exquisite  beauties  of 
a  merely  literary  form."  Macaulay,  referring 
to  the  same  translation,  calls  it  "that  stupen- 
dous work,  a  book,  which,  if  everything  else  in 
our  language  should  perish,  would  alone  suffice 
to  show  the  whole  extent  of  its  beauty  and 
power.  .  .  .  Whoever  would  acquire  a  knowl- 
edge of  pure  English  must  study  King  James' 
Version  of  the  Scriptures."  To  this  we  may 
join  the  testimony  of  Green,  the  historian  of 
the  English  people: 


40          THE  LITERARY  PRIMACY 

As  a  mere  literary  monument,  the  English  version  of 
the  Bible  remains  the  noblest  example  of  the  English 
tongue.  Its  perpetual  use  made  it  from  the  instant  of 
its  appearance  the  standard  of  our  language. 

It  formed,  we  must  repeat,  the  whole  literature  which 
was  practically  accessible  to  ordinary  Englishmen;  and 
when  we  recall  the  number  of  common  phrases  which 
we  owe  to  great  authors,  the  bits  of  Shakespeare,  or 
Milton,  or  Dickens,  or  Thackeray,  which  unconsciously 
weave  themselves  into  our  ordinary  talk,  we  shall  better 
understand  the  strange  mosaic  of  biblical  words  and 
phrases  which  colored  English  talk  two  hundred  years 
ago.  The  wealth  of  picturesque  allusion  and  illustration 
which  we  borrow  from  a  thousand  books,  our  fathers 
were  forced  to  borrow  from  one;  and  the  borrowing  was 
the  easier  and  the  more  natural  that  the  range  of 
Hebrew  literature  fitted  it  for  the  expression  of  every 
phase  of  feeling. 

George  Saintsbury,  in  his  History  of  the 
Elizabethan  Period  of  English  Literature, 
says :  "The  plays  of  Shakespeare  and  the  Eng- 
lish Bible  are  and  ever  will  be  the  twin  monu- 
ments, not  merely  of  their  own  period,  but  of 
the  perfection  of  English,  the  complete  ex- 
pressions of  the  literary  capacities  of  the 
language."  The  Roman  Catholic  Bishop 
Faber,  speaking  of  the  Authorized  Version  of 
our  English  Bible,  says : 

It  lives  on  the  ear  like  a  music  that  can  never  be 
forgotten,  like  the  sound  of  church  bells  which  the 
convert  scarcely  knows  how  he  can  forego.  Its  felicities 
often  seem  to  be  things  rather  than  words.  .  .  .  The 
memory  of  the  dead  passes  into  it.  The  potent  traditions 
of  childhood  are  stereotyped  in  its  verses.  It  is  the 
representative  of  a  man's  best  moments;  all  that  there 


OF  THE  BIBLE  41 

has  been  about  him  of  soft  and  gentle  and  pure  and 
penitent  and  good,  speaks  to  him  forever  out  of  his 
English  Bible. 

The  influence  of  the  Bible  upon  our  litera- 
ture descends  to  the  very  minutiae  of  composi- 
tion. In  his  Handbook  of  the  English  Tongue 
Dr.  Joseph  Angus  says:  "The  Bible  is  the 
richest  specimen  we  have  of  the  beauty  and 
force  of  the  old  Anglo-Saxon  speech."  It  has 
been  computed  that  more  than  nine  tenths  of 
the  words  in  the  Authorized  Version  of  the 
English  Bible  are  Anglo-Saxon,  which,  as  we 
know,  furnishes  the  great  bulk  of  words  in 
ordinary  use  to-day.  The  translations  which 
preceded  that  of  1611  were  put  into  speech 
which  the  people  could  understand,  and  the 
Authorized  Version  is  largely  built  on  this 
foundation.  In  a  book  on  The  Bible  in  Modern 
Life,  recently  published,  Joseph  S.  Auerbach 
gives  a  chapter  of  Bible  words  and  phrases, 
taken  almost  at  random  from  his  reading  of 
the  Scriptures,  which  are  current  in  modern 
speech  and  literature.  To  run  them  through 
is  to  meet  many  surprises.  This  author  very 
truthfully  says  that,  while  the  reasoning 
processes  of  the  biblical  writers  "were  often 
far  below  those  of  the  authors  of  the  classics 
of  the  world,"  yet  these  men  were  preeminent 
in  "illuminating  word  and  phrase,  of  such 
power  that  they  have  passed  not  only  into  the 


42          THE  LITERARY  PRIMACY 

books  of  our  literature,  but  become  part  of  the 
daily  speech  of  men." 

It  would  not  be  just,  however,  to  say  that 
the  pervasive  influence  of  the  biblical  litera- 
ture is  due  chiefly  to  the  skill  of  the  scholarly 
translators  who  gave  us  the  English  Version. 
This  power  seems  rather  to  reside  in  the  litera- 
ture itself,  and  to  be  an  inseparable  element  of 
its  structure.  Hebrew  and  Hellenic  Greek,  as 
Green  says,  "lent  themselves  with  curious 
felicity  to  purposes  of  translation."  The  late 
Milton  S.  Terry,  in  characterizing  the  lan- 
guages in  which  the  Bible  was  produced,  said : 

But  if  the  Greek  may  be  likened  to  the  Parthenon, 
and  the  Aramaean  to  the  broken  relics  of  fallen  mon- 
archies, the  Hebrew  tongue  is  like  the  temple  of  Solomon 
— a  wonder  of  the  world.  It  is  half  hieroglyphic.  Its 
letters  are  a  picture-gallery.  Its  emotional  expressive- 
ness adds  infinite  charm  to  its  sacred  literature.  It 
appears  in  full  development  in  its  most  ancient  records, 
as  if  it  had  been  crystallized  into  imperishable  form 
by  the  marvels  of  the  Exodus  and  the  fires  of  Sinai. 

When  men  began  to  translate  the  Scriptures 
into  the  languages  of  modern  Europe,  a  potent 
spell  seemed  to  be  exercised  over  their  toil ;  a 
beneficent  influence  seemed  to  be  imparted  to 
the  very  style  in  which  they  employed  their 
gifts.  It  was  an  occasion  of  wonder  to  those 
familiar  with  Tyndale's  other  writings,  which 
had  no  qualities  lifting  them  above  the  ordi- 
nary level  of  his  times,  that  he  produced  an 


OF  THE  BIBLE  43 

English  version  of  the  Scriptures  of  the  highest 
literary  excellence.  To  this  day  it  excites  the 
unstinted  admiration  of  the  critics.  A  similar 
benignancy  appears  to  have  favored  other 
translators. 

But  it  is  the  substance  of  the  Scriptures, 
rather  than  their  form,  to  which  we  must 
attribute  their  most  enduring  influence  upon 
other  literatures,  as  has  already  been  sug- 
gested. Very  significant  are  the  words  of 
Robert  Louis  Stevenson  concerning  the  Bible 
biographies : 

Written  in  the  East,  these  characters  live  forever  in 
the  West;  written  in  one  province,  they  pervade  the 
world;  penned  in  rude  times,  they  are  prized  more  and 
more  as  civilization  advances;  product  of  antiquity, 
they  come  home  to  the  business  and  bosoms  of  men, 
women,  and  children  in  modern  days. 

It  is  interesting  to  note  the  confession  made 
by  Hall  Caine  the  novelist  respecting  the 
source  whence  he  drew  his  inspiration : 

Whatever  strong  situations  I  have  in  my  books  are 
not  of  my  creation,  but  are  taken  from  the  Bible.  The 
Deemster  is  the  story  of  The  Prodigal  Son.  The  Bond- 
man is  the  story  of  Esau  and  Jacob.  The  Scapegoat 
is  the  story  of  Eli  and  his  sons;  and  The  Manxman 
is  the  story  of  David  and  Uriah. 

"I  would  not  now  exchange  for  any  amount 
of  money,"  said  Eugene  Field,  "the  acquaint- 
ance with  the  Bible  that  was  drummed  into 
me  when  a  boy." 


44          THE  LITERARY  PRIMACY 

It  is  needless  to  multiply  illustrations  of 
this  character.  The  dramatic  element  which 
runs  through  all  the  narrative  portions  of  the 
Bible  has  projected  itself  into  many  of  the 
finest  specimens  of  fiction  that  our  language 
holds,  just  as  in  painting,  sculpture,  music  and 
other  fine  arts  the  themes  of  the  Scriptures 
have  found  ample  expression.  In  our  day  the 
dramatists  are  busy  with  the  matchless  stories 
of  the  Bible,  and  find  in  their  naked  delinea- 
tions of  human  passion  the  surest  models  of 
character-portraiture. 

Ill 

Let  this  hurried  and  fragmentary  survey  of 
the  power  which  the  Bible  has  exerted  over  our 
English  literature  be  concluded  by  noting  the 
affection  shown  by  a  few  famous  individuals 
for  particular  portions  of  the  Scriptures. 
Tennyson  expressed  boundless  admiration  for 
the  Sermon  on  the  Mount  and  for  the  Parables 
of  Jesus.  "Perfection  beyond  compare,"  he 
called  them,  with  which  judgment  Browning 
agreed,  according  to  the  testimony  of  his  son. 
Gladstone  lovingly  referred  to  "that  sublime 
and  precious  production,  the  first  chapter  of 
Genesis."  Renan  called  the  Gospel  of  Luke 
"the  most  beautiful  book  in  existence."  Peter 
the  Great  is  said  to  have  known  the  Epistles 
of  Paul  bv  heart.  Herder  declared  of  John's 


OP  THE  BIBLE  45 

Gospel,  "That  little  book  is  a  still  deeper  sea, 
in  which  the  sun  and  stars  are  mirrored,  and 
if  there  are  eternal  truths  (and  such  there 
are)  for  the  human  race,  they  are  found  in  the 
Gospel  of  John."  Coleridge  said,  "I  think  St. 
Paul's  Epistle  to  the  Romans  is  the  most  pro- 
found work  in  existence,"  and  also,  "The  most 
gentlemanly  letter  ever  written  by  the  most 
perfect  gentleman  is  in  my  opinion  St.  Paul's 
Epistle  to  Philemon."  Macaulay  gave  great 
praise  to  that  passage  in  the  eighth  chapter  of 
Romans,  beginning,  "Who  shall  separate  us 
from  the  love  of  Christ?"  Napoleon  Bonaparte 
expressed  deep  appreciation  of  the  Pentateuch 
in  certain  parts  and  at  St.  Helena  proposed  to 
write  a  history  of  the  campaigns  of  Moses. 
About  five  minutes  before  his  death  Dean  Bur- 
gon  said,  "Give  me  a  pencil,  and  now  St. 
Mark."  The  book  was  laid  before  him,  that  he 
might  be  able  to  find  the  passage  he  desired, 
and  in  a  moment  he  was  gone.  Bishop  Ken's 
Bible  fell  open  at  the  fifteenth  chapter  of  First 
Corinthians,  and  J.  M.  Barrie  says  that  his 
mother's  Bible  seemed  to  open  of  itself  at  the 
fourteenth  chapter  of  John's  Gospel.  When 
Johnson  visited  Collins  in  his  illness,  and 
asked  him  what  had  been  his  companion  in 
trouble,  the  poet  held  out  a  little  copy  of  the 
New  Testament,  and  said,  "I  have  but  one 
book,  but  that  book  is  the  best  of  all."  William 


46          THE  LITEKAEY  PRIMACY 

Watson  the  poet  eulogizes  Isaiah,  but  also 
declares  that  David's  lament  over  Jonathan  is 
"the  most  perfect  elegy  in  all  literature,"  and 
the  song  of  Deborah  and  Barak  "the  most 
superb  expression  of  the  intoxication  of 
triumph."  Andrew  D.  White,  diplomat  and 
statesman,  the  first  president  of  Cornell  Uni- 
versity, who  places  the  Bible  at  the  top  of  his 
list  of  the  books  which  have  given  him  the 
greatest  profit  and  pleasure,  has  a  special  fond- 
ness for  the  Psalms,  the  nobler  portions  of 
Isaiah,  and  the  sixth  chapter  of  Micah.  In  the 
N)ew  Testament,  the  Sermon  on  the  Mount, 
St.  James's  definition  of  pure  and  undefiled 
religion,  and  St.  Paul's  description  of  charity 
are  singled  out  for  laudation.  He  says  that 
in  perfection  of  English  diction  there  is  in  the 
whole  range  of  literature  nothing  to  surpass 
the  story  of  Joseph  and  his  brethren.  A  serv- 
ant of  Alfred  de  Musset  showed  a  New  Testa- 
ment to  a  friend  who  came  to  inquire  about 
the  author :  and  said,  "I  know  not  what  Alfred 
found  in  that  book,  but  he  always  latterly  had 
it  under  his  pillow,  that  he  might  read  it  when 
he  would."  Charles  Dickens  wrote  to  his 
youngest  son,  who  was  about  to  leave  home : 

I  put  a  New  Testament  among  your  books  for  the 
very  same  reasons,  and  with  the  same  hopes,  that  made 
me  write  an  easy  account  of  it  for  you  when  you  were  a 
little  child.  Because  it  is  the  best  book  that  ever  was, 
or  will  be,  known  in  the  world;  and  because  it  teaches 


OF  THE  BIBLE  47 

you  the  best  lessons  by  which  any  human  creature  who 
tries  to  be  truthful  and  faithful  to  duty  can  possibly  be 
guided. 

Said  Sydney  Dobell : 

I  once  learned  the  New  Testament  by  rote,  and  I  can- 
not unlearn  the  beauty  of  those  sweet  old  Saxon  phrases 
in  which  I  have  thought  so  long.  Full  of  the  light  that 
never  was  on  sea  or  shore — the  light  of  the  holiest, 
happiest  and  best  recollections — I  seem  in  using  them 
to  mingle  a  new  element  with  earthly  speech,  and  relieve, 
in  some  sort,  with  their  glory  the  dreary  lifelessness  of 
words. 

Thus  wrote  Erasmus  in  a  famous  passage : 

I  wish  that  even  the  weakest  woman  should  read  the 
Gospel — should  read  the  Epistles  of  Paul.  And  I  wish 
that  these  were  translated  into  all  languages,  so  that 
they  might  be  read  and  understood  not  only  by  Scots 
and  Irishmen,  but  also  by  Turks  and  Saracens.  ...  I 
long  that  the  husbandman  should  sing  portions  of  them 
to  himself  as  he  follows  the  plow,  that  the  weaver  should 
hum  them  to  the  tune  of  his  shuttle,  that  the  traveler 
should  beguile  with  these  stories  the  tedium  of  his 
journey. 

Said  Dr.  Adolf  Deissmann: 

The  New  Testament  is  the  people's  book.  When 
Luther,  therefore,  took  the  New  Testament  from  the 
learned  and  gave  it  to  the  people,  we  can  only  regard 
him  as  restoring  what  was  the  people's  own.  .  .  .  Time 
has  transformed  the  book  of  the  people  into  the  book 
of  humanity. 

It  is  to  introduce  to  the  deeper  riches  of  this 
great  library  those  who  are  not  sufficiently 
aware  of  their  inexhaustible  wrorth  that  these 
lectures  are  given. 


48          THE  LITERARY  PRIMACY 


CHAPTER  II 

THE  POETRY  AND  ORATORY  OF  THE  BIBLE 

"LITERATURE,"  says  Lord  Morley,  "consists 
of  all  the  books — and  there  are  not  so  many — 
where  moral5  truth  and  human  passion  are 
touched  with  a  certain  largeness,  sanity,  and 
attraction  of  form."  He  might  have  had  the 
Bible  before  him  as  he  framed  this  definition, 
so  admirably  does  it  fit  the  sacred  writings 
of  that  massive  library.  As  we  proceed  to 
investigate  this  literature,  we  are  almost  im- 
mediately impressed  with  its  astonishing  diver- 
sity, and  a  further  examination  convinces  the 
student  that,  by  reason  of  this  quality,  it  is 
calculated  to  find  acceptance  with  all  classes 
of  minds.  Its  books  were  composed  by  a  great 
variety  of  persons,  living  under  many  different 
conditions,  and  impelled  by  numerous  distinc- 
tive considerations.  Its  range  of  subjects  is 
very  wide.  As  Dr.  Arthur  S.  Peake,  of  Eng- 
land, has  said: 

It  has  a  universality  like  that  of  Shakespeare,  appeal- 
ing to  every  emotion,  reflecting  every  situation.  It  has 
a  message  for  all  our  moods,  an  answer  to  our  deepest 
perplexities,  a  response  to  our  sorest  needs.  It  meets 
us  at  levels  of  our  being  which  other  literature  cannot 


OP  THE  BIBLE  49 

touch,  it  lends  our  spirits  wings  that  we  may  soar  to 
heights  which  would  otherwise  be  unreached.  And  when 
we  are  neither  mounting  upwards  on  flights  of  ecstasy, 
nor  in  the  gloomy  valley  of  depression,  but  moving  on 
the  somewhat  weary  path  of  life,  it  is  our  intimate 
companion,  relieving  the  tedious  monotony  of  the  way, 
cheering  and  strengthening  us  when  we  faint  beneath 
the  burden  we  are  called  to  bear. 

These  words  describe  one  of  the  sublimest 
functions  of  literature  in  general,  without  the 
fulfilling  of  which  nothing  written  deserves  to 
be  called  literature  in  the  higher  signification 
of  the  term.  But  the  Bible  overtops  all  other 
literatures  in  the  wrorld  in  the  suitability  of  its 
messages  to  every  conceivable  need  of  the 
human  spirit.  It  wras  produced  by  all  sorts 
and  conditions  of  men,  and  cannot  therefore 
fail  to  make  its  appeal  to  an  equal  diversity  of 
individual  cravings.  Dean  Farrar  has  well 
said: 

Touched  by  one  of  these  many  fingers,  our  hearts 
cannot  but  respond.  At  the  turning  of  a  page  we  may 
listen  to  Solomon  the  magnificent,  or  Amos  the  herds- 
man; to  Nebuchadnezzar  the  Babylonian  conqueror,  or 
Matthew  the  Galilean  publican.  If  St.  Paul  be  too 
difficult  for  us,  we  have  the  practical  plainness  of  St. 
Peter;  if  St.  John  soars  too  high  for  us  on  the  eagle 
wings  of  his  mysticism,  we  can  rejoice  in  the  simple 
sweetness  of  St.  Luke;  if  we  find  the  Apocalypse  too 
passionate  and  enigmatic,  we  can  rest  in  the  homely 
counsels  of  St.  James.  The  Scriptures  .  .  .  have  poetry 
for  the  student,  history  for  the  statesman,  psalms  for 
the  temple,  proverbs  for  the  mart.  They  have  appeals, 
denunciations,  arguments,  stories  of  battle,  songs  of  love. 


50          THE  LITERARY  PRIMACY 

They  have  mountains  and  valleys,  shadow  and  sunshine, 
calm  and  tempest,  stormy  waves  and  still  waters,  lilies 
of  the  green  pasture  and  the  shadow  of  a  great  rock  in 
weary  lands. 

For  minds  that  are  attuned  to  high  reason- 
ings there  are  philosophical  meditations  and 
theological  disquisitions,  but  for  the  humbler 
intelligence  there  is  that  which  satisfies  the 

CJ 

commonest  need.  Diligent  scholars  are  in- 
creasingly amazed  at  the  vast  wealth  of 
thought  in  the  Bible  as  they  multiply  their 
endeavors  to  mine  it;  while  untutored  intel- 
lects, coming  freshly  to  the  privilege  of  reading 
it,  are  rejoiced  at  the  naturalness  and  simple 
homeliness  of  many  of  its  parts. 

Two  days  before  his  death  Martin  Luther 
wrote:  "No  one  can  understand  VergiPs 
Bucolics  unless  he  has  been  for  five  years  a 
herdsman.  No  one  can  understand  Vergil's 
Georgics  unless  he  has  been  for  five  years  a 
husbandman.  No  one  can  fully  understand 
Cicero's  Letters  unless  he  has  been  actively 
engaged  for  twenty-five  years  in  a  great  com- 
monwealth. Let  no  one  think  he  has  fully 
appreciated  the  Holy  Scriptures  unless  he  has 
governed  congregations  for  a  hundred  years 
with  prophets  like  Elijah  and  Elisha,  John  the 
Baptist,  Christ  and  the  Apostles." 

This  is  not  intemperate  language,  consider- 
ing the  measureless  depths  of  biblical  thought ; 


OF  THE  BIBLE  51 

yet  the  marvel  of  the  Bible  lies  in  its  trans- 
parency, notwithstanding  its  profundity. 
Ministers  of  religion  are  repeatedly  astonished 
at  the  facility  with  which  unlearned  persons 
absorb  many  of  its  sublimest  teachings.  It  is 
as  a  French  writer  has  declared :  "The  waters 
of  Holy  Scripture  have  this  peculiar  property, 
that  they  are  proportioned  and  suited  to  the 
needs  of  everv  soul.  A  lamb  can  walk  therein. 

V 

and  at  the  same  time  they  are  so  deep  that  an 
elephant  can  swim  in  them."  Said  Novalis, 
"The  Bible  begins  nobly  with  Paradise,  the 
symbol  of  youth,  and  concludes  with  the 
eternal  kingdom,  the  Holy  City."  Between 
these  points  stretch  vast  areas  of  diversified 
literature,  unparalleled  in  the  written  records 
of  the  world,  and  providing  nourishment  for 
all  grades  of  intellectual  and  spiritual  being. 

"The  Scriptures,"  said  Sir  William  Jones, 
"contain  more  sublimity,  more  exquisite  beauty, 
and  finer  strains  of  poetry  and  eloquence  than 
could  be  collected  from  all  other  books  that 
were  ever  composed  in  any  age  or  in  any 
idiom."  "There  are,"  said  John  Milton,  "no 
songs  to  be  compared  with  the  songs  of  Zion, 
no  orations  equal  to  those  of  the  prophets,  and 
no  politics  equal  to  those  the  Scriptures  can 
teach  us."  Yet  it  must  be  kept  in  mind,  as  a 
modern  scholar  has  reminded  us,  that  "neither 
of  the  two  collections  of  books  that  make  up 


52          THE  LITERARY  PRIMACY 

the  Bible  is  arranged  from  the  point  of  view 
of  art,  but  from  that  of  religious  value;  they 
are  collections  not  of  belles  lettres  but  of 
sacred  writings."  That  is  merely  to  say  that 
they  are  not  artificially  constructed  master- 
pieces of  literary  craftsmanship,  but  free,  spon- 
taneous, exuberant  expressions  of  life,  in  which 
religion  is  the  dominant  tone. 


It  is  in  the  realm  of  poetry  that  we  shall 
first  test  the  encomiums  which  have  been  pro- 
nounced upon  the  Bible  as  literature.  When 
Victor  Hugo  was  asked,  "Is  it  not  difficult  to 
write  epic  poetry?"  he  responded,  "No,  easy- 
or  impossible."  The  assertion  is  probably  true 
of  any  great  poetry,  whatever  its  form.  What 
one  early  observes  with  respect  to  the  poetic 
effusions  which  abound  in  the  Bible  is  that 
the  writers  of  these  inspired  verses  evidently 
did  their  work  with  the  utmost  freedom  and 
facility,  if  indeed  it  would  not  be  proper  to 
say  that  they  accomplished  it  almost  without 
the  consciousness  that  they  were  producing 
anything  of  large  consequence. 

"What  poets  those  old  Hebrews  were!"  ex- 
claimed John  Bright,  who  was  all  his  lifetime 
a  devout  student  of  the  Bible ;  and  Dr.  George 
Adam  Smith  says  of  this  element  in  Hebrew 


OP  THE  BIBLE  53 

literature:  "In  one  aspect  it  is  the  nearest 
poetry  of  all,  the  first  which  we  learned; 
through  the  open  windows  of  which  we  had 
our  earliest  visions  of  time,  of  space,  of 
eternity,  and  of  God.  Its  rhythms  haunt  our 
noblest  prose;  its  lyrics  are  our  most  virile 
and  enduring  hymns." 

In  speaking  of  the  Bible  as  poetry,  Walt 
Whitman  refers  to  what  he  calls  "the  cumulus 
of  associations  of  the  Bible  as  a  poetic  entity, 
and  of  every  portion  of  it.  Not  the  old  edifice 
only,"  he  says,  "the  congeries  also  of  events, 
and  struggles,  and  surroundings,  of  which  it 
has  been  the  scene  and  motive — even  the 
horrors,  dreads,  deaths.  How  many  ages  and 
generations  have  brooded  and  wept  and 
agonized  over  this  book!  What  untellable 
joys  and  ecstasies,  what  support  to  martyrs  at 
the  stake  from  it !  ...  Of  its  thousands  there 
is  not  a  verse,  not  a  word,  but  is  thick-studded 
with  human  emotion." 

Joseph  Addison  may  be  safely  quoted  as  a 
reliable  judge  of  the  worth  of  Hebrew  poetry. 
"Homer  has  innumerable  flights  that  Vergil 
was  not  able  to  reach,"  he  declares,  "and  in 
the  Old  Testament  we  find  several  passages 
more  elevated  and  sublime  than  any  in  Homer" 
.  .  .  "After  perusing  the  Book  of  Psalms,  let 
a  judge  of  the  beauties  of  poetry  read  a  literal 
translation  of  Homer  or  Pindar,  and  he  will 


54          THE  LITERARY  PRIMACY 

find  in  these  last  two  such  an  absurdity  and 
confusion  of  style,  with  such  a  comparative 
poverty  of  imagination,  as  will  make  him 
sensible  of  the  vast  superiority  of  the  Scripture 
style." 

It  is  one  of  the  requisites  for  effective  poetry 
that  it  shall  be  musical.  The  Bible  is  singu- 
larly happy  in  meeting  this  test.  Many  per- 
sons will  sympathize  with  the  rabbi  who  said, 
"I  should  like  to  have  some  anthems  com- 
posed to  suit  certain  passages  in  the  Minor 
Prophets."  We  know  how  copiously  this  has 
been  done  for  the  Psalms  and  other  more 
detached  passages  of  the  Bible,  including  a 
few  from  the  New  Testament.  Many  of  these, 
especially  from  the  Old  Testament,  retain  their 
sonorousness  after  they  have  been  rendered 
into  English,  so  that  it  is  almost  impossible 
to  recite  them  in  that  tongue  without  falling 
into  musical  cadences.  Numerous  passages 
when  read  understandingly,  as  Tennyson  used 
to  interpret  them  by  his  voice,  are  melodious 
to  a  remarkable  degree. 

It  enhances  the  literary  importance  of  the 
Bible  to  remember  that  all  we  have  of  the 
poetry  of  ancient  Israel,  and  all  that  we  know 
of  the  poetic  art  among  that  people,  we  have 
derived  from  the  Old  Testament  Scriptures. 
The  Bible,  including  the  Apocrypha,  as  already 
explained,  contains  the  entire  extant  literature 


OF  THE  BIBLE  55 

of  the  Hebrews  of  the  olden  time.  It  is  also 
to  be  remembered  that  in  the  case  of  any  primi- 
tive people,  so  scholars  versed  in  antiquities 
affirm,  all  discourse  intended  for  publicity  or 
for  memorial  purposes  will  be  found  clothed 
in  poetical  forms.  Poetry  is  older  than  prose. 
It  has  been  called  "the  mother  tongue  of  the 
human  race."  This  will  account  for  the  fact 
that,  in  addition  to  those  books  which  are  dis- 
tinctly poetical,  we  have  large  quantities  of 
poetry  scattered  through  other  sections  of  the 
Bible,  particularly  in  the  historical  and  pro- 
phetical writings.  "We  think,"  wrote  Macau- 
lay,  "that  as  civilization  advances,  poetry 
almost  necessarily  declines."  Though  ably 
supported  by  its  brilliant  author,  that  proposi- 
tion may  not  be  convincing  to  every  mind, 
without  important  qualifications ;  yet  it  is  un- 
deniable that  much  of  the  grandest  poetry  of 
every  nation  is  sung  in  its  infancy.  In  the 
Bible  we  are  dealing  with  the  ancient  litera- 
ture of  the  Hebrews,  and  it  is  natural  to 
find  here  exalted  utterances  of  their  primal 
speech. 

It  does  not  fall  within  the  scope  of  these 
lectures  to  deal  with  matters  of  technique  in 
literary  composition,  but  it  may  be  useful  to 
us  in  attempting  to  acquire  a  deeper  apprecia- 
tion of  Hebrew  poetry  to  pause  long  enough 
to  consider  superficially  its  general  principles 


56          THE  LITERARY  PRIMACY 

of  construction.  Poetic  forms  among  the  He- 
brews were  comparatively  simple,  the  true 
poetical  value  being  found  in  the  striking 
imagery  and  f ullnesg  of .  e^o^^on^  expressed 
therein.  There  is  a  mechanical  structure,  how- 
ever, to  which  their  poems  ordinarily  conform. 
The  laws  of  Hebrew  meter  are  deduced  entirely 
from  the  poetry  itself,  and  not  from  any  tradi- 
tion which  has  descended  from  earliest  times. 
The  discovery  of  these  laws  is  regarded  as  an 
achievement  of  modern  scholarship.  The 
poetic  line — a  limited  word-group — is  the  first 
poetical  unit,  a  line  easily  and  comfortably 
pronounced  in  a  single  breath.  Such  lines 
detach  themselves  with  clearness  in  all  poetical 
parts  of  the  Old  Testament.  In  Hebrew  poetry 
"the  end  of  the  line  uniformly  coincides  with 
a  break  in  the  sense."  The  second  poetical 
unit  is  the  verse,  formed  in  the  majority  of 
cases  by  two  lines  regularly  combined.  The 
underlying  principle  of  poetic  construction 
may  be  called  parallelism,  the  balancing  of 
verses  in  such  a  way  as  to  present  the  ideas 
contained  therein  as  synonymous,  antithetic 
and  synthetic.  An  example  of  the  first  is 
herewith  taken  from  Psalm  78: 

Give  ear,  0  my  people,  to  my  law:    ^ 
Incline  your  ears  to  the  words  of  my  mouth. 

I  will  open  my  mouth  in  a  parable; 
I  will  utter  dark  sayings  of  old, 


OF  THE  BIBLE  57 

Which  we  have  heard  and  known, 
And  our  fathers  have  told  us. 

We  will  not  hide  them  from  their  children, 
Telling  to  the  generation  to  come  the  praises  of  Jehovah, 
And  his  strength,  and  his  wondrous  works  that  he  hath 
done. 

From  the  tenth  chapter  of  Proverbs  we  may 
take  an  illustration  of  the  second,  or  anti- 
thetic, classification : 

A  wise  son  maketh  a  glad  father; 

But  a  foolish  son  is  the  heaviness  of  his  mother. 

Treasures  of  wickedness  profit  nothing; 
But  righteousness  delivereth  from  death. 

Jehovah  will  not   suffer  the  soul  of  the   righteous  to 

famish; 
But  he  thrusteth  away  the  desire  of  the  wicked. 

For  the  synthetic  arrangement,  which  natu- 
rally lends  itself  to  variety  of  formation,  let 
us  read  two  familiar  verses  from  Psalm  37 : 

/  have  been  young,  and  now  am  old; 

Yet  have  I  not  seen  the  righteous  forsaken, 

Nor  his  seed  begging  bread. 

All  the  day  long  he  dealeth  graciously,  and  lendeth; 
And  his  seed  is  blessed. 

To  this  we  may  add  the  beautiful  description 
of  a  worthy  woman  found  in  the  thirty-first 
chapter  of  Proverbs,  beginning  as  follows : 

A  worthy  woman  who  can  find? 
For  her  price  is  far  above  rubies. 

The  heart  of  her  husband  trusteth  in  her, 
And  he  shall  have  no  lack  of  gain. 


58          THE  LITERARY  PRIMACY 

She  doeth  him  good  and  not  evil 
All  the  days  of  her  life. 

She  seeketh  wool  and  flax, 

And  worketh  willingly  with  he?'  hands. 

She  is  like  the  merchant-ships; 
She  bringeth  her  bread  from  afar. 

The  principles  thus  briefly  illustrated  the 
scholars  tell  us  hold  good  in  the  poetry  of  the 
ancient  Babylonians  and  Assyrians,  and  per- 
haps in  a  less  developed  form  among  the  early 
Egyptians.  It  must  be  kept  in  mind,  however, 
that  these  are  only  general  rules,  to  which 
there  are  numerous  exceptions.  Rhyme,  when 
it  occurs  in  Hebrew  poetry,  seems  to  be  acci- 
dental rather  than  studied,  though  some  critics 
believe  that  the  writers  who  used  it  were  con- 
scious of  the  performance  and  relished  it. 

The  genius  of  Hebrew  poetry  is  other  than 
that  of  the  poetry  with  which  English-speaking 
people  are  familiar  in  particulars  more  essen- 
tial than  metrical  arrangement.  By  virtue  of 
the  narrower  civilization  and  the  more  meager 
accompaniments  of  his  life,  the  Hebrew  poet 
had  less  to  quicken  his  imagination  or  develop 
his  creative  gifts  than  falls  to  the  lot  of  men 
living  under  the  favor  of  a  more  opulent  life. 
Alluding  to  the  fact  that  our  word  poet 
signifies  a  maker,  George  Adam  Smith  says : 

Those  who  among  the  Hebrews  correspond  to  the 
Aryan  poets  call  themselves  singers,  minstrels,  shepherds 
of  words,  comparers,  bewailers,  and  the  like — anything 


OF  THE  BIBLE  59 

but  makers.  The  verbs  which  describe  their  functions 
express  not  the  power  of  creation  but  the  capacity  for 
impression;  not  the  art  of  building  or  of  ornament  so 
much  as  the  process  of  outpouring  and  the  spirit  of 
urgency.  The  singers  rose  from  and  were  inspired  by 
less  coherent  forms  of  life  than  our  own,  and  this  social 
looseness,  along  with  their  people's  ignorance  of  archi- 
tecture and  other  constructive  arts,  has  had  its  effect 
on  their  poetry. 

What  is  here  called  "the  capacity  for  im- 
pression" is  exemplified  in  the  representations 
of  the  phenomena  of  nature  which  the  Hebrew 
poet  made  from  the  somewhat  restricted  fields 
of  observation  which  were  open  to  him.  Alex- 
ander von  Humboldt  expressed  his  astonish- 
ment to  find  a  single  psalm — the  104th — por- 
traying "with  a  few  bold  touches  the  heavens 
and  the  earth — the  whole  image  of  the  Cos- 
mos." It  has  been  said  that  "the  thunder 
storms  of  Thomson,  of  Vergil,  and  of  Homer, 
are  inferior  to  that  of  David — Psalm  18 — both 
in  graphic  power  and  in  sublimity  of  use." 
Professor  Francis  Bowen  declares:  "Indeed  I 
know  not  anything  in  all  Greek,  Latin,  or  Eng- 
lish poetry,  that  matches  in  sublimity  and 
grandeur  the  magnificent  sweep  of  this  descrip- 
tion of  the  providence  of  God  as  manifested  in 
the  phenomena  of  nature."  Let  us  rehearse 
the  lines: 

Then  the  earth  shook  and  trembled; 

The  foundations  also  of  the  mountains  quaked 

And  were  shaken  because  he  was  wroth. 


60          THE  LITERARY  PRIMACY 

There  went  up  a  smoke  out  of  his  nostrils, 

And  fire  out  of  his  mouth  devoured: 

Coals  were  kindled  by  it. 

He  bowed  the  heavens  also,  and  came  down; 

And  thick  darkness  was  under  his  feet. 

And  he  rode  upon  a  cherub,  and  did  fly; 

Yea,  he  soared  upon  the  wings  of  the  wind. 

He  made  darkness  his  hiding  place,  his  pavilion  round 

about  him, 

Darkness  of  waters,  thick  clouds  of  the  skies. 
At  the  brightness  before  him  his  thick  clouds  passed, 
Hailstones  and  coals  of  fire. 
Jehovah  also  thundered  in  the  heavens, 
And  the  Most  High  uttered  his  voice, 
Hailstones  and  coals  of  fire. 
And  he  sent  out  his  arrows  and  scattered  them; 
Yea,  lightnings  manifold,  and  discomfited  them. 
Then  the  channels  of  waters  appeared, 
And  the  foundations  of  the  world  were  laid  bare 
At  thy  rebuke,  O  Jehovah, 
At  the  blast  of  the  breath  of  thy  nostrils. 
He  sent  from  on  high,  he  took  me; 
He  drew  me  out  of  many  waters. 

Another  description  of  the  appearance  of  God 
in  a  thunder  storm,  scarcely  less  majestic,  is 
found  in  the  twenty-ninth  Psalm.  It  portrays 
"the  progress  of  the  storm  from  the  peaks  of 
Lebanon  down  the  mountain  flanks  and  out 
upon  the  desert." 

Poetry  implies  pictures.  A  poem  without 
pageantry  is  ordinary  prose  strung  to  a  metri- 
cal arrangement.  Imagery  must  abound. 
Metaphors  and  similes,  emblems  and  symbols, 
flags  and  banners,  heralds  and  trumpeters  of 
speech  must  be  marshaled  before  the  mind's 


OF  THE  BIBLE  61 

vision;  otherwise  there  is  no  poetry,  and 
Byron's  contemptuous,  though  not  altogether 
just,  criticism  of  Wordsworth  will  be  pertinent 
to  the  versifier — he  will  be  one 

Who  both  by  precept  and  example  shows 
That  prose  is  verse  and  verse  is  merely  prose. 

Jn  what  is  known  as  The  Song  of  Moses — 
Deut.  32 — a  plenitude  of  imagery  is  employed, 
as  we  have  seen  to  be  the  case  with  the  poems 
already  considered,  and  as  we  shall  find  to  be 
true  of  all  that  are  yet  to  be  observed.  Note 
with  what  freedom,  what  absence  of  effort,  this 
poem  begins: 

Give  ear,  ye  heavens,  and  I  will  speak; 

And  let  the  earth  hear  the  words  of  my  mouth. 

My  doctrine  shall  drop  as  the  rain, 
My  speech  shall  distill  as  the  dew; 
As  the  small  rain  upon  the  tender  grass, 
And  as  the  showers  upon  the  herb. 

Then  follows  a  figure  for  God  which  was 
used  by  the  chronicler  in  the  books  of  Samuel, 
David,  and  the  later  psalmists,  Isaiah,  Habak- 
kuk,  and  other  orator-poets : 

For  I  will  proclaim  the  name  of  Jehovah: 
Ascribe  ye  greatness  unto  our  God. 

The  Rock,  his  work  is  perfect; 

For  all  his  ways  are  justice: 

A  God  of  faithfullness  and  without  iniquity, 

Just  and  right  is  he. 

Kepeatedly  the  poet  returns  to  this  figure, 


62          THE  LITERARY  PRIMACY 

with  what  effect  one  can  easily  discern  when 
he  remembers  what  rocks  and  mountain  sum- 
mits must  have  meant  to  the  Israelites  during 
their  nomad  life.  The  providential  care  for 
Israel  which  Jehovah  exercised  is  then  de- 
scribed in  immortal  stanzas : 

Remember  the  days  of  old, 
Consider  the  years  of  many  generations: 
Ask  thy  father,  and  he  will  show  thee; 
Thine  elders,  and  they  will  tell  thee. 

When  the  Most  High  gave  to  the  nations  their  inherit- 
ance, 

When  he  separated  the  children  of  men, 
He  set  the  bounds  of  the  peoples 
According  to  the  number  of  the  children  of  Israel. 

For  Jehovah's  portion  is  his  people; 
Jacob  is  the  lot  of  his  inheritance. 

He  found  him  in  a  desert  land, 

And  in  the  waste  howling  wilderness; 

He  compassed  him  about,  he  cared  for  him, 

He  kept  him  as  the  apple  of  his  eye. 

As  an  eagle  that  stirreth  up  her  nest, 
That  fluttereth  over  her  young, 
He  spread  abroad  his  wings,  he  took  them, 
He  bare  them  on  his  pinions. 

Jehovah  alone  did  lead  him, 

And  there  was  no  foreign  god  with  him. 

He  made  him  to  ride  on  the  high  places  of  the  earth, 
And  he  did  eat  the  increase  of  the  field; 
And  he  made  him  to  suck  honey  out  of  the  rock, 
And  oil  out  of  the  flinty  rock; 


OF  THE  BIBLE  63 

Butter  of  the  herd,  and  milk  of  the  flock, 

With  fat  of  lambs, 

And  rams  of  the  breed  of  Bashan,  and  goats, 

With  the  finest  of  the  wheat; 

And  of  the  blood  of  the  grape  thou  drankest  wine. 

The  entire  poem  is  worthy  of  -deep  study, 
and  discloses  extraordinary  power  of  vivid 
description  and  lofty  emotion.  But  we  must 
turn  to  another  type  of  poetry  in  which  the 
Bible  excels.  Our  example  is  the  Song  of  the 
Bow,  which  the  chronicler  in  2  Samuel  has 
taken  from  the  Book  of  Jashar,  David's  Dirge 
for  Saul  and  Jonathan: 

Thy  glory,  0  Israel,  is  slain  upon  thy  high  places! 
How  are  the  mighty  fallen! 

Tell  it  not  in  Gath, 

Publish  it  not  in  the  streets  of  Ashkelon; 
Lest  the  daughters  of  the  Philistines  rejoice, 
Lest  the  daughters  of  the  uncircumcised  triumph. 

Ye  mountains  of  Gilboa, 

Let  there  be  no  dew  nor  rain  upon  you,  neither  fields  of 

offerings : 

For  there  the  shield  of  the  mighty  was  vilely  cast  away, 
The  shield  of  Saul,  not  anointed  with  oil. 

From  the  blood  of  the  slain,  from  the  fat  of  the  mighty, 
The  bow  of  Jonathan  turned  not  back, 
And  the  sword  of  Saul  returned  not  empty. 

Saul  and  Jonathan  were  lovely  and  pleasant  in  their 

lives, 

And  in  their  death  they  were  not  divided: 
They  were  swifter  than  eagles, 
They  were  stronger  than  lions. 


64          THE  LITERARY  PRIMACY 

Ye  daughters  of  Israel,  weep  over  Saul, 
Who  clothed  you  in  scarlet  delicately, 
Who  put  ornaments  of  gold  upon  your  apparel, 

How  are  the  mighty  fallen  in  the  midst  of  the  battlel 
Jonathan  is  slain  upon  thy  high  places. 

I  am  distressed  for  thee,  my  brother  Jonathan: 
Very  pleasant  hast  thou  been  unto  me: 
Thy  love  to  me  was  wonderful, 
Passing  the  love  of  women. 

How  are  the  mighty  fallen, 

And  the  weapons  of  war  perished! 

The  Ode  of  Deborah  in  Judg.  5,  which  has 
been  described  by  a  modern  critic  as  "a  song 
that  for  force  and  fire  is  worthy  to  be  placed 
alongside  the  noblest  battle-odes  in  any  lan- 
guage," is  too  long  for  complete  recital  here, 
but  we  cannot  forbear  to  insert  "the  thrilling 
section  of  the  song  which  tells  of  the  slaying 
of  Sisera  by  Jael,  the  wife  of  a  Kenite,  or  the 
dramatic  delineation  of  the  longing  of  the 
mother  of  Sisera  for  the  home-coming  of  her 
son." 

Blessed  above  women  shall  Jael  be, 

The  wife  of  Heber  the  Kenite; 

Blessed  shall  she  be  above  women  in  the  tent. 

He  asked  water,  and  she  gave  him  milk; 
She  brought  him  butter  in  a  lordly  dish. 

She  put  her  hand  to  the  tent-pin, 

And  her  right  hand  to  the  workmen's  hammer; 


OF  THE  BIBLE  65 

And   with   the   Hammer   she   smote    Sisera,   she   smote 

through  his  head; 
Yea,  she  pierced  and  struck  through  his  temples. 

At  her  feet  he  bowed,  he  fell,  he  lay; 

At  her  -feet  he  bowed,  he  fell: 

Where  he  bowed,  there  he  fell  down  dead. 

Through  the  window  she  looked  forth,  and  cried, 
The  mother  of  Sisera  cried  through  the  lattice, 
Why  is  his  chariot  so  long  in  coming ? 
Why  tarry  the  wheels  of  his  chariots? 

Her  wise  ladies  answered  her, 

Yea,  she  returned  answer  to  herself, 

Have  they  not  found,  have  they  not  divided  the  spoil? 
A  damsel,  two  damsels  to  every  man; 
To  Sisera  a  spoil  of  dyed  garments, 
A  spoil  of  dyed  garments  embroidered, 
Of  dyed  garments  embroidered  on  both  sides,  on  the 
necks  of  the  spoil? 

So  let  all  thine  enemies  perish,  0  Jehovah: 
But  let  them  that  love  him  be  as  the  sun  when  he  goeth 
forth  in  his  might. 

Though  they  are  all  deserving  of  studious 
attention,  we  can  do  no  more  than  mention  the 
titles  of  other  poems  imbedded  in  the  historical 
records  of  the  ancient  Hebrews,  such  as :  The 
Oracles  of  Balaam,  in  Num.  23  and  24;  The 
Song  of  Moses  and  Miriam,  in  Exod.  15; 
Jacob's  Prophecy  concerning  his  Sons,  in  Gen. 
49;  The  Blessing  of  Moses,  in  Deut.  33; 
Hannah's  Song  of  Thanksgiving,  in  1  Sam.  2; 
David's  Song  of  Praise,  in  2  Sam.  22 ;  another 


66          THE  LITERARY  PRIMACY 

edition  of  which  is  Psalm  18 ;  David's  reputed 
Swan  Song  in  the  next  chapter  of  the  same 
book ;  The  Psalm  of  Thanksgiving,  in  1  Chron. 
16;  to  which  must  be  added  those  fragments 
and  lesser  poems — The  Revenge  of  Lamech,  in 
Gen.  4.  23,  24;  The  Curse  of  Canaan,  in  Gen. 
9.  25-27 ;  The  Oracle  to  Hagar,  in  Gen.  16.  11, 
12;  Isaac's  Blessings  on  Jacob  and  Esau,  in 
Gen.  27.  27-29,  39,  40 ;  The  Song  of  the  Well, 
in  Num.  21.  17,  18;  Joshua's  Address  to  the 
Sun  and  Moon,  in  Josh.  10.  12,  13;  and  The 
Priestly  Blessing  recorded  in  Num.  6.  24-26 : 

Jehovah  "bless  thee,  and  keep  thee: 

Jehovah   make   his  face   to   shine  upon    thee,   and    oe 

gracious  unto  thee: 
Jehovah  lift  up  his  countenance  upon  thee,  and  give 

thee  peace. 

Lyric  poetry  naturally  predominates  in 
Hebrew  literature,  and  the  Hebrews  lead  the 
world  in  this  kind  of  poetry,  as  even  critics 
without  religious  prepossessions  in  their  favor 
have  been  forced  to  admit.  "Hebrew  poetry," 
says  Bishop  Jebb,  "is  universal  poetry,  the 
poetry  of  all  languages  and  of  all  peoples."  In 
no  biblical  poetry  is  this  truth  more  impres- 
sively exhibited  than  in  the  Psalms.  The  uni- 
versality of  the  adaptation  of  the  Hebrew 
Hymn  Book  to  the  spiritual  needs  of  men  is 
nothing  short  of  marvelous.  Gladstone  de- 
clares : 


OF  THE  BIBLE  67 

In  the  Psalms  is  the  whole  music  of  the  human  heart, 
when  touched  by  the  hand  of  its  maker,  in  all  its  tones 
that  whisper  or  swell:  for  every  hope  and  fear,  for 
every  sigh  and  every  pang,  for  every  form  of  strength 
and  languor,  of  disquietude  and  rest. 

Charles  Kingsley,  in  describing  the  func- 
tions of  the  poet,  says : 

What  a  man  wants,  what  art  wants,  perhaps  what 
the  maker  of  them  both  wants,  is  a  poet  who  shall  begin 
by  confessing  that  he  is  as  other  men  are,  and  shall 
sing  about  things  which  concern  all  men,  in  language 
which  all  men  can  understand. 

These  requirements  the  Psalms  fulfill  in  a 
magnificent  way. 
Said  John  Calvin: 

I  am  in  the  habit  of  calling  this  book  (The  Psalms) 
not  inappropriately  The  Anatomy  of  All  Parts  of  the 
Soul,  for  not  an  affection  will  anyone  find  in  himself,  an 
image  of  which  is  not  reflected  in  this  mirror. 

Said  Athanasius: 

He  who  uses  the  Psalms  is  as  one  who  speaks  his  own 
words,  and  each  one  sings  them  as  if  they  had  been 
written  for  his  own  case,  and  not  as  if  they  had  been 
spoken  by  some  one  else,  or  meant  to  apply  to  some  one 
else. 

Said  Bishop  Wordsworth : 

The  universality  of  the  Psalter  is  evident  from  this 
consideration:  every  other  book  of  the  Old  Testament 
has  its  counterpart  in  the  New.  The  books  of  Moses 
and  other  historical  books  have  their  correspondence 
in  the  Gospels  and  the  Acts;  the  didactic  books  have 
theirs  in  the  Epistles;  the  prophets  have  theirs  in  the 
Apocalypse;  but  the  Psalter  has  no  echo  in  the  New 


68          THE  LITEEAKY  PRIMACY 

Testament.  It  is  its  own  echo;  it  belongs  to  both  Testa- 
ments. It  speaks  of  Christ,  and  Christ  speaks  in  it.  It 
is  the  hymn  book  of  the  universal  church. 

"When  the  philosophies  of  Aristotle  and 
Plato  are  no  longer  read,"  said  Rabbi  Levy, 
"the  Psalms  of  David  will  still  be  joyously 
sung."  The  popularity  of  these  lyrics  is  un- 
matched, as  their  literary  and  devotional  excel- 
lence is  unsurpassed.  There  is  no  book  in  the 
Bible  perhaps  with  which  more  persons  are 
familiar,  and  no  poetry  from  which  we  need 
less  to  bring  illustrated  excerpts  for  our  pres- 
ent purpose  than  the  Psalms.  It  is  sufficient 
to  point  to  this  superb  collection  of  sacred 
songs,  and  bid  everyone  satisfy  himself  with 
their  celestial  melody.  It  has  been  appropri- 
ated by  all  kinds  of  men,  in  every  walk  of  life, 
and  for  innumerable  occasions.  The  fitness  of 
a  psalm  for  a  specific  experience  has  frequently 
been  startlingly  shown  in  historic  events.  Let 
us  take  a  single  example  from  the  early  records 
of  our  own  country : 

The  scene  is  the  first  Colonial  Congress  in 
1774.  To  the  proposal  that  the  session  be 
opened  with  prayer  Mr.  Jay  of  New  York 
and  Mr.  Rutledge  of  South  Carolina  objected 
on  the  ground  that  there  existed  such  a  diver- 
sity of  religious  sentiments  among  the  mem- 
bers as  made  it  impracticable  for  them  to  join 
in  the  same  act  of  worship.  Then  glorious  old 


OF  THE  BIBLE  69 

Sam  Adams  arose,  and  avowing  that  lie  was 
no  bigot,  said :  "I  can  hear  a  prayer  from  any 
man  of  piety  who  is  at  the  same  time  a  friend 
to  his  country."  A  clergyman  was  thereupon 
invited  to  perform  the  sacred  office.  He  read 
the  psalm  for  the  day  [second]  in  the  order 
of  his  church.  Bancroft  says  that  "it  seemed 
as  if  Heaven  itself  was  uttering  its  oracle." 
Intelligence  had  just  been  received  of  the  ter- 
rible bombardment  of  Boston.  The  New  Eng- 
landers  present  believed  that  the  lives  of  their 
friends  were  being  taken  by  their  foes  at  that 
very  moment.  They  were  profoundly  moved 
as  they  listened  to  the  ringing  sentences  of  the 
thirty-fifth  psalm,  beginning: 

Strive  thou,  0  Jehovah,  with  them  that  strive  with  me: 
Fight  thou  against  them  that  fight  against  me. 

Take  hold  of  shield  and  buckler, 
And  stand  up  for  my  help. 

Draw  out  also  the  spear,  and  stop  the  way  against  them 

that  pursue  me; 
Say  unto  my  soul,  I  am  thy  salvation. 

Let  them  be  put  to  shame  and  brought  to  dishonor  that 

seek  after  my  soul: 
Let  them  be   turned   back  and  confounded  that  devise 

my  hurt. 

Let  them  be  as  chaff  before  the  wind, 

And  the  angel  of  Jehovah  driving  them  on. 


Several    volumes    containing    hundreds    of 


70          THE  LITERARY  PRIMACY 

impressive  stories  of  the  uses  eminent  men 
have  made  of  the  Psalms  in  critical  events 
of  their  lives  have  been  issued.  One  of  these 
has  recently  appeared  in  its  fourth  edition 
after  many  reprints.  It  is  called  The  Psalms 
in  Human  Life.  Its  author,  Rowland  E. 
Prothero,  says : 

No  fragment  of  the  glorious  temples  at  Jerusalem; 
but  the  imperishable  hymns  of  the  Jewish  worship  rule 
the  hearts  of  men  with  more  than  their  pristine  power, 
and  still  continue  to  inspire  and  elevate  the  conduct 
and  devotions  of  successive  generations  of  mankind. 
Fathers  of  the  early  Church,  like  Origen,  Athanasius 
and  Jerome,  Basil,  Ambrose  and  Augustine;  apostles  of 
British  Christianity,  such  as  Columba,  Cuthbert,  Wil- 
frid, Dunstan,  and  Bede;  mediaeval  saints,  like  Bernard, 
Francis  of  Assisi,  or  Thomas  of  Villanova;  statesmen, 
like  Ximenes,  Burghley,  and  Gladstone — have  testified 
to  the  universal  truth  and  beauty  of  the  Psalms.  With 
a  psalm  upon  their  lips  died  Wiclif,  Huss  and  Jerome 
of  Prague,  Luther  and  Melanchthon.  Philosophers,  such 
as  Bacon  and  Locke  and  Hamilton;  men  of  science,  like 
Humboldt  and  Romanes;  among  missionaries,  Xavier, 
Martyn,  Duff,  Livingstone,  Mackay,  and  Hannington; 
explorers,  like  Columbus;  scholars,  like  Casaubon  and 
Salmasius;  earthly  potentates,  like  Charlemagne,  Vladi- 
mir, Monomachus,  Hildebrand,  Louis  IX,  Henry  V,  Cathe- 
rine de  Medici,  Charles  V,  Henry  of  Navarre,  and  Mary 
Queen  of  Scots — have  found  in  the  Psalms  their  inspira- 
tion in  life,  their  strength  in  peril,  or  their  support  in 
death. 

Oliver  Cromwell's  mind  was  fairly  saturated 
with  the  Psalms,  and  on  many  a  hard  fought 
field  his  soldiers  joined  in  singing  the  swelling 
stanzas  of  some  martial  exhortation  or  of  some 


OF  THE  BIBLE  71 

triumphant  paean  from  the  Hebrew  Psalter. 
The  armies  of  more  than  one  great  commander 
have  been  heartened  by  the  stirring  measures 
of  the  Psalms,  and  from  the  same  source,  re- 
formers, confessors,  martyrs  and  heroes  of 
liberty  have  derived  inspiration  and  courage 
for  their  tasks  and  trials. 

The  influence  of  the  Psalms  in  literature  has 
been  monumental.  Sir  Philip  Sidney,  Lord 
Bacon,  Robert  Burns,  William  Cowper,  John 
Milton,  George  Herbert,  John  Keble,  Joseph 
Addison,  Charles  Wesley,  and  Isaac  Watts  are 
a  few  among  the  many  who  have  rendered  the 
Psalms  into  English  verse ;  and  still  more  im- 
posing is  the  list  of  poets  and  men  of  letters 
in  various  lands  who  have  yielded  to  the  spell 
of  these  deathless  lyrics. 

We  cannot  attempt  even  a  superficial  ex- 
amination of  all  the  poetic  literature  of  the 
Bible,  but  no  one  who  hopes  to  obtain  a  fair 
appreciation  of  its  variety  and  extent  should 
fail  to  apply  his  literary  judgment  to  such 
masterpieces  as  the  Proverbs,  which  Matthew 
Arnold  calls  "a  delicious  book,'5  the  Song  of 
Solomon  "a  whole  collection  of  fine  specimens 
of  wedding  songs,"  and  the  Lamentations  of 
Jeremiah. 

The  dramatic  poem  which  bears  the  name  of 
Job,  its  central  figure,  is  best  described  by 
means  of  the  tributes  paid  to  it  by  two  dis- 


72          THE  LITERARY  PRIMACY 

tinguished  men  of  letters.     Thomas  Carlyle 
says : 

I  call  the  Book  of  Job,  apart  from  all  theories  about 
it,  one  of  the  grandest  things  ever  written  with  a  pen. 
One  feels,  indeed,  as  if  it  were  not  Hebrew;  such  a  noble 
universality,  different  from  noble  patriotism  or  sectarian- 
ism, reigns  in  it.  A  noble  book;  all  men's  book.  It 
is  our  first,  oldest  statement  of  the  never-ending  problem 
— man's  destiny  and  God's  way  with  him  here  in  this 
earth.  And  all  in  such  free,  flowing  outlines;  grand  in 
its  sincerity,  in  its  simplicity,  in  its  epic  melody  and 
repose  of  reconcilement.  .  .  .  Such  living  likenesses 
were  never  since  drawn.  Sublime  sorrow,  sublime  recon- 
ciliation; oldest  choral  melody  as  of  the  heart  of  man- 
kind; so  soft  and  great;  as  the  summer  midnight,  as 
the  world  with  its  seas  and  stars.  There  is  nothing 
written,  I  think,  in  the  Bible  or  out  of  it,  of  equal 
literary  merit. 

The  judgment  of  James  Anthony  Froude  is 
of  the  same  nature : 

An  extraordinary  book,  a  book  of  which  it  is  to  say 
little  to  call  it  unequaled  of  its  kind,  and  which  will 
one  day,  perhaps,  when  it  is  allowed  to  stand  on  its  own 
merits,  be  seen  towering  up  alone,  far  away  above  all 
the  poetry  of  the  world. 

Only  repeated  and  continuous  reading  of 
Job  will  enable  the  mind  to  discover  the  justifi- 
cation for  this  superlative  praise,  nor  can  the 
sublime  moralities  of  the  poem  be  understood 
adequately  by  any  man  till  he  has  reached 
middle  life,  and  been  confronted  with  the 
problems  which  form  the  substance  of  its  pro- 
found inquiries.  Yet  it  needs  but  an  elemen- 


OF  THE  BIBLE  73 

tary  literary  culture  to  discern  the  rhetorical 
grandeur  of  such  passages  as  that  which  por- 
trays Job's  yearning  to  find  God,  in  chapter 
23;  or  that  which  describes  the  benefits  of 
chastisements,  in  chapter  5;  or  that  which 
delineates  the  creation  and  constitution  of  the 
earth,  in  chapter  38 ;  or  that  which  pictures  the 
war-horse,  in  chapter  39;  or  that  wrhich  de- 
scribes leviathan,  in  chapter  41. 

There  is  in  this  book  such  a  blending  of  epic, 
lyric,  and  dramatic  elements,  and  such  an 
intermingling  of  ethical,  moral,  and  social 
questions,  as  cannot  be  found  in  the  master- 
pieces of  any  other  literature.  When  this 
wondrous  work  is  compared  with  Homer, 
Sophocles,  Dante,  Shakespeare,  Milton,  and 
Goethe,  its  preeminence  is  at  once  apparent. 

When  we  turn  to  the  New  Testament  for 
illustrations  of  biblical  poetry,  we  are  met 
chiefly  by  quotations  from  the  Old  Testament, 
both  in  the  narrative  portions  of  the  Gospels 
and  in  the  discourses  of  Jesus,  whose  mind  was 
filled  with  a  knowledge  of  the  ancient  writings 
of  his  people.  The  same  is  true  of  the  Acts  of 
the  Apostles  and  of  the  speeches  of  Peter  and 
Paul.  The  Epistles  contain  frequent  citations 
from  the  prophetical  books  and  the  Psalms. 
Of  original  poetry  we  have  but  few  examples 
in  the  New  Testament,  but  these  are  of  the 


74          THE  LITERARY  PRIMACY 

highest  quality.  In  the  Gospel  of  Luke  appear 
what  have  been  called  the  first  Christian 
hymns.  In  addition  to  the  Ave  Maria  of  the 
Roman  Church,  the  annunciation  to  Mary 
(1.  28-33),  and  the  Gloria  in  Excelsis  of  all 
Christendom,  the  angelic  salutation  which 
heralded  the  advent  of  Jesus  (2.  14),  we  have 
the  Benedictus,  or  song  of  Zacharias  (1.  68- 
79 )  ;  the  Magnificat,  or  the  song  of  the  Virgin 
Mary  (1.  46-55),  and  the  Nunc  Dimittis,  or  the 
song  of  Simeon  (2.  29-32).  Allusions  to  the 
old  writings  or  direct  quotations  from  them 
occur  in  these  songs.  They  are  especially 
plentiful  in  the  Magnificat;  but  of  this  song 
it  has  been  well  said  that  "it  surpasses  the 
Old  Testament  in  spiritual  elevation,  and  the 
unity  of  feeling  that  pervades  it  makes  it  an 
original  composition."  In  the  broader  signifi- 
cance of  poetry,  which  subordinates  form  to 
spirit  or  altogether  disregards  mechanical  con- 
struction, Jesus  may  be  classed  among  the 
poets,  and  surely  Paul's  Ode  to  Love  in  1  Cor. 
13,  and  much  of  his  discussion  of  the  resurrec- 
tion in  the  fifteenth  chapter  of  the  same  epistle 
must  be  regarded  as  poetry  in  essence,  though 
not  in  form. 

II 

It  is  an  easy  and  natural  transition  from  the 
poetry  to  the  oratory  of  the  Bible.     There  is 


OF  THE  BIBLE  75 

an  obvious  kinship  between  these  two  forms 
of  expression.  Many  of  the  orations  in  the 
Old  Testament  are  not  only  poetical  in  spirit, 
but  they  are  phrased  in  language  which  can 
be  rightly  estimated  only  by  using  the  same 
canons  of  literary  judgment  which  are  applied 
to  poetry.  Yet  the  essential  motive  of  oratory 
is  broadly  distinguished  from  that  of  most 
poetry.  Definitions  of  oratory,  as  framed  by 
men  who  were  masters  of  public  discourse,  will 
both  aid  us  in  determining  the  end  which 
oratory  seeks,  and  enable  us  to  perceive  the 
grounds  on  which  the  oratory  of  the  Bible  is 
assigned  so  lofty  a  place. 

"An  orator,"  said  Cicero,  "is  one  who  can 
use  words  agreeable  to  hear  and  thoughts 
adapted  to  prove."  Aristotle  described  oratory 
as  "the  power  of  saying  on  every  subject  what 
can  be  found  to  persuade."  Macaulay  de- 
clared, "The  object  of  oratory  alone  is  not 
truth,  but  persuasion."  Emerson  affirmed, 
"The  end  of  eloquence  is — is  it  not?  to  alter 
in  a  pair  of  hours,  perhaps  in  a  half  hour's 
discourse,  the  convictions  and  habits  of  years." 
Fenelon  defines  it  more  elaborately  thus : 

The  whole  art  of  oratory  may  be  reduced  to  proving, 
painting  and  raising  the  passions.  Now  all  those  pretty 
sparkling,  quaint  thoughts  that  do  not  tend  to  one  of 
these  ends  are  only  witty  conceits.  The  whole  art  of 
eloquence  consists  in  enforcing  the  clearest  proofs  of 
any  truth  with  such  powerful  motives  as  may  affect 


76          THE  LITERARY  PRIMACY 

the  hearers,  and  employ  their  passions  to  just  and 
worthy  ends;  to  raise  their  indignation  at  ingratitude, 
their  horror  against  cruelty,  their  compassion  for  the 
miserable,  their  love  of  virtue,  and  to  direct  every  other 
passion  to  its  proper  objects. 

According  to  these  definitions,  which  we 
may  accept  as  expert  testimony  on  the  subject, 
oratory  is  not  boisterous  declamation,  or  per- 
fervid  rhetoric,  or  bombastic  fury  of  voice  or 
manner,  but  reasonableness,  put  forward  in 
an  impressive  fashion.  Poetic  beauty  may 
characterize  it,  deep  feeling  will  undoubtedly 
pervade  it,  but  whatever  springs  of  emotion 
are  touched,  the  motive  will  be  persuasion, 
proof,  conviction. 

Within  these  terms  we  shall  find  oratory  in 
abundance  in  the  literature  of  the  Bible. 
Though  it  will  be  impracticable  to  make  cita- 
tions such  as  were  gathered  from  the  poets, 
for  reason  that  will  be  apparent  to  the  judi- 
cious, yet  a  sufficient  indication  of  oratorical 
passages  in  the  Bible  may  be  given.  It  has 
been  said  that  no  collection  of  speeches  in 
secular  literature  has  the  interest  which 
attaches  to  the  orations  of  Moses  because  of 
their  setting,  as  displayed  in  the  book  of  Deu- 
teronomy. These  will  be  read  with  much  relish 
if  their  historical  perspective  is  clearly  before 
our  minds.  One  of  the  finest  specimens  of 
eloquence  in  any  language  is  Judah's  plea 


OF  THE  BIBLE  77 

before  Joseph  ( Gen.  44.  18-34 ) ,  and  no  person 
of  feeling  can  read  it  without  being  deeply 
moved.  Joshua's  exhortation  to  Israel  (Josh. 
23.  3-16)  at  the  close  of  his  public  career  is 
an  exalted  discourse  which  produced  a  pro- 
found impression,  and  was  attended  by  results 
that  place  it  well  within  the  range  of  the 
definitions  of  oratory  already  quoted.  Ezra's 
sermon  (Neh.  8)  must  be  reckoned  as  a  noble 
piece  of  horniletical  exposition,  though  but 
little  of  his  actual  speech  is  recorded. 

It  is  among  the  prophets,  however,  that  we 
must  look  for  the  most  copious  illustrations 
of  the  oratory  which  has  been  preserved  in  the 
Old  Testament.  It  is  customary  for  many  to 
think  of  these  seers  as  writers  rather  than  as 
speakers.  In  truth,  however,  their  deliver- 
ances were  not,  in  most  instances,  originally 
written,  but  were  speeches  subsequently  set 
down  in  form  for  consultation  and  reference; 
just  as  the  speeches  of  Webster  and  other 
American  statesmen  were  first  given  in  extem- 
poraneous form,  and  afterward  prepared  for 
publication;  or  as  many  of  the  sermons  of 
Wesley  were  arranged  with  strict  attention  to 
logical  propriety  and  were  sustained  by  exten- 
sive notes,  but  wrere  not  reduced  to  writing 

». 

until  they  were  needed  for  the  press. 

Many  of  the  orations  of  the  prophets  were 
distinctly  poetic  both  in  form  and  substance. 


78          THE  LITERARY  PRIMACY 

Indeed,  it  would  be  quite  impossible  to  assign 
to  them  their  true  value  as  literature  without 
keeping  this  fact  in  mind.  What  Dr.  Arthur 
S.  Peake  says  about  the  Bible  in  general  is 
particularly  apposite  for  the  prophetical  writ- 
ings: "There  are  many  passages  of  Scripture 
whose  spell  over  us  would  be  completely 
broken  were  they  to  be  so  written  that,  while 
the  ideas  remained  the  same,  the  expression 
was  changed  into  pedestrian  prose."  Illus- 
trations of  this  fact  will  occur  to  everyone 
familiar  with  the  Old  Testament. 

Some  of  the  prophets  were  not  educated  in 
the  formal  sense.  Amos  was  a  herdsman.  A 
modern  critic  has  suggested  that  the  reason 
Jeremiah  dictated  his  prophecy  to  Baruch  was 
that  he  could  not  write.  The  ignominy  of  such 
a  disability  is  diminished  in  the  mind  of  this 
author  by  recalling  that  "Wolfram  von 
Eschenbach,  the  great  German  poet  of  the 
middle  ages,  could  neither  read  nor  write ;  yet 
he  produced  works  of  great  length,  and,  in 
accordance  with  the  practice  of  the  time,  he 
no  doubt  recited  them  on  different  occasions.7' 
Isaiah  flourished  in  the  court  of  Hezekiah,  and 
represents  an  entirely  different  type  of  proph- 
et. Each  of  the  great  seers  whose  addresses 
have  been  preserved  possessed  characteristics 
which  distinguish  him  from  the  others.  The 
earliest  of  them,  as  well  as  some  of  the  later 


OP  THE  BIBLE  79 

ones,  have  given  us  what  has  been  called  the 
national  poetry  of  their  times,  charged  as  it 
is  with  the  public  and  community  issues  of 
the  several  periods  in  which  it  was  produced. 

It  must  not  be  forgotten  that  the  element 
of  prediction  entered  but  subordinately  into 
their  work.  They  were  seers  who  spoke  in 
behalf  of  Jehovah,  agitators  who  attempted  to 
rouse  the  nation  to  a  consciousness  of  the  need 
for  reform.  They  undertook  to  interpret  to 
the  people  the  latter's  civic,  national,  and  reli- 
gious duties.  They  felt  it  to  be  their  first 
obligation  to  make  clear  these  responsibilities 
and  the  account  which  must  be  rendered  to 
God  for  their  proper  discharge.  Dean  Stanley, 
in  his  History  of  the  Jewish  Church,  has  given 
parallel  instances  of  the  exercise  of  the  pro- 
phetic office  in  later  history.  He  says : 

When  Ambrose  closed  the  doors  of  the  church  of  Milan 
against  the  blood-stained  hands  of  the  devout  Theo- 
dosius,  he  acted  in  the  spirit  of  a  prophet.  When  Ken, 
in  spite  of  his  doctrine  of  the  divine  right  of  kings, 
rebuked  Charles  II  on  his  deathbed  for  his  long  un- 
repented  vices,  those  who  stood  by  were  justly  reminded 
of  the  ancient  prophets.  When  Savonarola,  at  Florence, 
threw  the  energy  of  his  religious  zeal  into  burning  indig- 
nation against  the  sins  of  the  city,  high  and  low,  his 
sermons  read  more  like  Hebrew  prophecies  than  modern 
homilies. 

To  these  we  may  add,  as  equally  pertinent 
illustrations,  the  work  of  Whitefield  and  the 
Wesley s,  of  Asbury  and  Edwards,  of  many  reli- 


80          THE  LITERARY  PRIMACY 

gious  and  social  reformers  of  modern  times, 
who  in  a  sense  are  as  much  to  be  designated 
prophets  as  were  Amos  and  Malachi. 

In  recent  years  the  political  functions  of  the 
biblical  prophets  have  come  to  be  better  un- 
derstood than  in  former  times.  The  matter 
has  been  put  felicitously  by  Dr.  Hodges,  as 
quoted  by  Dr.  Washington  Gladden : 

The  Jewish  Church  was  the  Jewish  nation.  The 
prophets  were  patriot  orators,  who  preached  politics 
with  vehemence,  and  entered  might  and  main  into  public 
life.  It  is  impossible  to  think  of  Isaiah  as  a  quiet  parish 
priest,  living  in  the  center  of  a  narrow  circle,  letting 
the  great  world  outside  go  on  uninterrupted  in  its  own 
mistaken  way.  In  New  York,  in  Boston,  Isaiah  would 
have  been  the  heart  and  soul  of  a  great,  outspoken, 
radical  independent,  righteous  newspaper.  Amos  and 
Hosea  would  have  put  themselves  in  peril  of  the  police 
by  inflammatory  speeches  on  the  street  corners  and  in 
the  parks.  All  these  men  were  interested  in  public 
questions  profoundly  and  supremely.  .  .  .  There  was  no 
difference  [to  them]  between  a  parliament  and  a  prayer 
meeting.  Any  political  question  was  also  a  religious 
question. 

Space  is  denied  us  for  citations  from  the 
prophetic  orators,  but  examples  abound.  The 
reader  who  has  a  susceptibility  for  eloquence, 
and  whose  imagination  is  vivid  enough  to 
enable  him  to  realize  the  situations  out  of 
which  these  messages  wrere  uttered,  will  find 
no  difficulty  in  selecting  for  himself  speech 
after  speech  of  unusual  oratorical  and  dra- 
matic power  from  the  prophetical  writings. 


OF  THE  BIBLE  81 

Attention  is  herewith  directed  to  the  prophecy 
of  Isaiah,  chapters  1.  2-20 ;  3.  9-26 ;  35 ;  55  and 
60,  as  containing  noble  illustrations  of 
oratory.  They  also  exhibit  the  strong  poetic 
quality  of  this  orator-prophet,  and  go  far  to 
explain  the  words  of  Matthew  Arnold :  "I  rate 
the  value  of  the  operation  of  poetry  and  litera- 
ture upon  men's  minds  extremely  high;  and 
from  no  poetry  and  literature,  not  even  from 
our  own  Shakespeare  and  Milton,  great  as  they 
are,  and  our  own  as  they  are,  have  I  for  my 
own  part  received  so  much  delight  and  stimu- 
lus as  from  Homer  and  Isaiah."  Other 
prophets  will  make  a  like  impression  on  other 
minds,  and  a  thorough  acquaintance  with  their 
literature  will  dispose  us  to  express  with  re- 
spect to  many  of  them  the  sentiment  uttered 
by  Ruskin  with  regard  to  one  of  them :  "I 
should  have  liked  excessively  to  have  known 
Habakkuk." 

When  we  enter  the  domain  of  the  New 
Testament  we  are  obviously  where  oratory 
plays  a  most  conspicuous  part.  It  is  un- 
deniable that  John  the  Baptist  was  a  man  of 
remarkable  oratorical  gifts.  The  mere  read- 
ing of  Matt.  3.  7-12,  compared  with  Luke  3. 
3-17,  will  indicate  this,  and  the  immense  influ- 
ence he  exerted  over  the  crowds  which  were 
drawn  to  him  from  every  part  of  Palestine  will 
confirm  the  impression.  The  question  is  some- 


82          THE  LITEKARY  PRIMACY 

times  mooted  whether  Jesus  can  be  with 
propriety  denominated  an  orator.  So  universal 
were  his  intellectual  resources,  as  revealed  in 
his  parables  and  other  discourses,  that,  though 
not  a  fragment  of  writing  from  his  hand  exists, 
one  sees  that  there  is  no  form  of  literature  in 
which  he  might  not  have  excelled.  Reference 
has  already  been  made  to  the  poetic  character- 
istics of  his  speech,  and  as  a  maker  of  stories 
he  has  remained  unsurpassed  to  this  day.  He 
surely  possessed  the  prime  requisites  for  an 
orator.  He  had  a  flawless  physical  constitu- 
tion; the  lack  of  it  would  have  been  used 
against  him  by  his  enemies  and  would  have 
made  it  impossible  for  him  to  endure  the  strain 
and  exposure  of  his  public  ministry.  He  must 
have  had  a  magnificent  voice,  or  he  could  not 
have  made  himself  heard  by  the  vast  throngs 
which  gathered  on  the  hillsides  to  listen  to  his 
words.  He  had  the  oratorical  temperament, 
and  could  run  the  whole  gamut  of  emotional 
expression,  from  the  mildest  pathos  to  the 
most  withering  sarcasm.  With  the  glance  of 
his  eye  he  could  quell  the  hostile  mob,  or  send 
the  recreant  disciple  away  weeping  bitterly. 
In  rhetorical  purity  and  splendor  he  was 
matchless.  His  parables  are  marvels  of  sim- 
plicity and  directness;  their  literary  beauty 
has  never  been  equaled.  While  the  Sermon  on 
the  Mount  is  didactic,  epigrammatic,  pictorial, 


OF  THE  BIBLE  83 

it  embodies  the  spirit  of  that  eloquence,  .the 
purpose  of  which  is  to  persuade  or  convince, 
and  the  peroration,  as  recorded  in  Matt.  7. 
21-27,  is  truly  sublime.  In  Christ's  indictment 
of  the  Scribes  and  Pharisees,  preserved  in  the 
twenty-third  chapter  of  the  same  Gospel,  we 
have  an  equally  impressive  example  of  his 
power  of  invective. 

Of  apostolic  oratory  we  have  numerous  and 
striking  illustrations.  A  perusal  of  the 
Pauline  epistles  will  disclose  how  winged  were 
the  words  of  the  Apostle  to  the  Gentiles.  From 
these  writings  we  are  able  to  get  a  conception 
of  what  Paul  would  do  in  public  speech.  As 
his  epistles  were,  with  few  exceptions,  intended 
to  be  read  to  the  churches,  we  may  discern 
the  reason  for  their  resemblance  to  addresses, 
though  in  some  instances,  as  in  the  Epistle  to 
the  Romans  and  the  Epistle  to  the  Colossians, 
we  have  discourses  more  seriously  reasoned 
than  would  be  natural  to  public  speech. 

Readers  of  the  Acts  of  the  Apostles  will 
recall  more  than  one  address  of  Peter's  which 
exhibits  the  fervor  and  persuasiveness  of 
genuine  oratory.  In  Stephen's  speech  before 
the  Sanhedrim  we  have  an  oratorical  example 
of  high  significance ;  while  Paul's  addresses  on 
Mars'  Hill  (Acts  17),  to  the  Ephesian  elders 
( Acts  20 ) ,  on  the  staircase  at  Jerusalem  ( Acts 
22),  before  Felix  (Acts  24),  and  before 


84          THE  LITERARY  PRIMACY 

Agrippa  (Acts  26),  reveal  the  forensic  ability 
which  he  possessed. 

From  this  hurried  survey  of  the  oratorical 
elements  in  the  literature  of  the  Bible  we  are 
not  surprised  at  the  influence  wrought  by  it 
upon  the  oratory  of  those  men  in  public  life 
who  have  been  wise  enough  to  pore  over  its 
contents.  Every  student  of  literature  is  aware 
that  Lincoln's  celebrated  Gettysburg  speech 
is  full  of  biblical  ideas  and  phraseology,  as 
were  most  of  his  public  addresses  and  state 
papers.  Both  Edmund  Burke  and  John  Bright 
enriched  their  speeches  in  Parliament  and  on 
the  hustings  by  many  extracts  from  the  Scrip- 
tures. Said  Daniel  Webster,  "If  there  is  any- 
thing in  my  style  or  thoughts  to  be  com- 
mended, the  credit  is  due  to  my  kind  parents 
for  instilling  into  my  mind  an  early  love  of 
the  Scriptures."  When  Kossuth,  the  Hun- 
garian patriot-orator,  was  asked  how  he  came 
to  know  and  speak  the  English  language  so 
well,  he  replied,  "By  studying  the  English 
Bible."  The  great  power  of  Chrysostom's 
sermons  lay  not  merely  in  his  extraordinary 
rhetorical  ability,  but  also  and  mainly  in  his 
thorough  acquaintance  with  the  Bible,  of 
which  he  made  abundant  use.  The  biographer 
of  Ruf us  Choate  says  of  him : 

You  can  hardly  find  speech,  argument,  or  lecture  of 
his,  from  first  to  last,  that  is  not  sprinkled  and  studded 


OF  THE  BIBLE  85 

with  biblical  ideas  and  pictures,  and  biblical  words  and 
phrases.  To  him  the  book  of  Job  was  a  sublime  poem. 
He  knew  the  Psalms  by  heart,  and  dearly  loved  the 
prophets,  and  above  all  Isaiah,  upon  whose  gorgeous 
imagery  he  made  copious  drafts.  He  pondered  every 
word,  read  with  most  subtle  keenness,  and  applied  with 
happiest  effect. 

The  man  who  wishes  to  perfect  himself  in 
the  art  of  public  speech,  as  respects  both  the 
matter  and  manner  of  effective  discourse,  must 
consult  not  merely  those  classic  examples  of 
Greece  and  Rome  which  are  so  frequently  held 
up  for  his  emulation,  but  also  those  rugged 
orators  whose  sentences  resound  through  the 
Scriptures,  and  especially  the  utterances  of 
Him  who  spoke  as  "never  man  spake." 


86          THE  LITERARY  PRIMACY 


CHAPTER  III 

THE  FICTION  AND  HUMOR  OF  THE  BIBLE 

HEINRICH  HEINE  said,  "The  Bible  is  the 
drama  of  the  human  race."  This  is  a  truer 
description  than  many  realize  who  quote  it 
with  approval.  If  they  concede  its  correctness 
they  ought  to  acknowledge  the  truth  of  its 
implications,  and  expect  the  Bible  to  reflect 
all  the  moods  of  mankind.  This  they  virtually 
deny.  Their  reverence  for  the  sublime  motif 
of  redemption  which  pervades  the  Bible  has 
led  them  to  obscure  the  human  element  which 
exists  in  its  various  documents.  They  forget 
that  it  is  the  ancient  literature  of  a  great 
people,  a  manifold  expression  of  their  life,  the 
ripest  intellectual  fruitage  of  a  race  with  a 
genius  for  religion ;  and  that  no  tenable  theory 
of  its  divine  inspiration  can  ignore  the  histori- 
cal process  by  which  it  was  produced. 

It  has  been  observed  more  than  once,  and 
expressed  in  various  terms,  that  while  the 
ideal  of  the  Greeks  was  knowledge,  and  that 
of  the  Romans  was  social  order,  the  ideal  of 
the  Hebrews  was  religion.  The  Bible  is  the 
record  of  the  religious  and  national  develop- 
ment of  the  Hebrew  people.  In  a  theocracy, 


OF  THE  BIBLE  87 

such  as  that  out  of  which  Jewish  nationality 
was  evolved,  religious  experience  and  racial 
history  are  inseparable.  When  a  people  living 
under  such  conditions  begin  to  write,  it  is 
natural  that  wliat  they  produce  should  have 
a  religious  cast.  In  accord  with  this  principle 
some  of  the  books  of  the  Bible  have  an  exclu- 
sively religious  aim,  which  the  dullest  mind 
cannot  ignore.  Others  are  dominated  by  reli- 
gious sentiments,  though  they  are  not  written 
primarily  with  a  religious  purpose.  Still 
others,  on  a  close  scrutiny,  fail  to  disclose  more 
than  moral  or  religious  implications.  They 
were  not  devised  as  religious  literature.  Eeli- 
gion  is  simply  the  atmosphere  in  which  they 
were  composed.  The  Song  of  Solomon  and  the 
book  of  Esther  may  be  assigned  to  this  last 
class.  To  such  an  extent  has  the  feeling  pre- 
vailed that  only  those  books  should  be  regarded 
sacred  which  are  emphatically  religious  that 
great  hesitation  has  been  shown  by  certain 
devout  scholars  to  acknowledge  the  right  of 
any  others  to  a  place  in  the  Canon  of  Scrip- 
ture. But  insistence  upon  a  definite  religious 
teaching  in  every  work  for  which  inspiration 
is  claimed  has  wrought  mischief  for  religion, 
and  has  made  it  difficult,  if  not  impossible,  to 
form  a  correct  estimate  of  the  Bible.  What 
Phillips  Brooks  said  about  the  second  collec- 
tion of  books  in  the  Bible  applies  to  the  entire 


88          THE  LITERARY  PRIMACY 

volume :  "The  New  Testament  is  a  biography. 
Make  it  a  mere  book  of  dogmas,  and  its  vitality 
is  gone.  Make  it  a  book  of  laws,  and  it  grows 
hard  and  untimely.  Make  it  a  biography,  and 
it  is  a  true  book  of  life.  Make  it  the  history 
of  Jesus  of  Nazareth,  and  the  whole  world 
holds  it  in  its  heart  forever."  If  in  the  same 
spirit  we  persist  in  the  opinion  that  the  Old 
Testament  is  to  be  read  from  beginning  to 
end  with  a  strictly  theological  interpretation 
always  in  mind,  we  shall  inevitably  lose  many 
of  the  most  wholesome  virtues  which  are  in- 
herent in  its  literature.  But  if  we  constantly 
remind  ourselves  of  the  actual  character  of 
this  literature,  and  remember  how  it  was  pro- 
duced, we  shall  be  prepared  for  an  almost 
unlimited  variety  of  art  forms,  and  shall  not 
be  surprised  to  find,  in  addition  to  history, 
adventure,  biography,  poetry  and  oratory, 
illustrations  of  romance,  the  drama,  fiction 
and  humor.  Indeed,  on  the  supposition  that 
the  ancient  Hebrews  were  a  normal  people, 
whose  intellectual  life  developed  naturally,  we 
should  be  puzzled  if  we  did  not  discover  such 
types  in  their  literature. 


The  reluctance  of  devout  admirers  of  the 
Bible  to  admit  that  fiction  is  displayed  within 


OF  THE  BIBLE  89 

its  pages  is  probably  due  in  large  part  to  their 
inability  to  distinguish  between  the  truth 
which  is  indissoluble  from  fact  and  the  truth 
which  is  independent  of  fact,  which  in  a  narra- 
tive, for  example,  is  defiant  of  historicity. 
They  forget  that  Bunyan's  Pilgrim's  Progress 
may  be  true  as  an  exposition  of  the  spiritual 
conflicts  which  are  incident  to  a  finally  tri- 
umphant Christian  life,  while  at  the  same  time 
it  is  wholly  untrue  as  a  description  of  the 
actual  occurrences  in  the  career  of  a  real  indi- 
vidual and  of  those  other  persons  who  are 
represented  as  having  been  in  association  with 
him.  Gradually  the  parables  of  Jesus  have 
come  to  be  recognized  by  the  majority  of  Bible 
readers  as  fiction  of  the  noblest  species,  their 
strength  lying  in  the  obvious  possibility  of  the 
events  narrated,  and  in  their  similarity  to  the 
commonly  observed  happenings  of  the  world. 
When  it  is  once  realized  that  Jesus  was  a  most 
skillful  inventor  of  stories,  the  substance  of 
which  was  plucked  out  of  the  experiences  of 
mankind,  but  the  shaping  of  which  was  due 
to  the  matchless  genius  of  his  mind,  it  is  easy 
to  accommodate  one's  thought  to  the  affirma- 
tion that  various  other  portions  of  the  Bible 
can  only  satisfactorily  be  explained  as  fiction. 

A  simple  and  rudimentary  form  of  fictitious 
writing  is  the  fable.  This  literary  contrivance 
is  sharply  differentiated  from  other  forms  of 


90          THE  LITERARY  PRIMACY 

fiction  by  the  fact  that  it  employs  inanimate 
nature,  and  more  frequently  the  lower  animals 
of  creation  for  its  dramatis  personce.  A  story 
is  made  the  vehicle  of  truth  to  be  imparted, 
but  is  always  an  impossible  story.  The  mo- 
tive is  usually  the  inculcation  of  what  has  been 
termed  "prudential  morality."  Industry,  fru- 
gality, foresight,  caution,  common  sense,  and 
other  sterling  virtues  of  a  well-regulated  life 
are  illustrated,  but  no  such  strict  regard  for 
the  semblance  of  fact  is  shown  as  one  expects 
in  the  higher  forms  of  fiction.  So  far  as  the 
records  indicate  neither  Jesus  nor  his  apostles 
ever  used  the  fable,  but  we  have  several  ex- 
amples of  it  in  the  Old  Testament,  the  most 
impressive  being  that  which  Jothani  spoke  to 
the  men  of  Shechem  from  the  top  of  Mount 
Gerizirn  ( Judg.  9.  8-15 ) .  It  reads  as  follows : 

The  trees  went  forth  on  a  time  to  anoint  a  king  over 
them;  and  they  said  unto  the  olive-tree,  Reign  thou  over 
us.  But  the  olive-tree  said  unto  them,  Should  I  leave 
my  fatness,  wherewith  ~by  me  they  honor  God  and  man, 
and  go  to  wave  to  and  fro  over  the  trees f  And  the  trees 
said  to  the  fig-tree,  Come  thou,  and  reign  over  us.  But 
the  fig-tree  said  unto  them,  Should  I  leave  my  sweetness, 
and  my  good  fruit,  and  go  to  wave  to  and  fro  over  the 
trees?  And  the  trees  said  unto  the  vine,  Come  thou,  and 
reign  over  us.  And  the  vine  said  unto  them,  Should  I 
leave  my  new  wine,  which  cheereth  God  and  man,  and 
go  to  wave  to  and  fro  over  the  trees  f  Then  said  all  the 
trees  unto  the  oramole,  Come  thou,  and  reign  over  us. 
And  the  'bram'ble  said  unto  the  trees,  If  in  truth  ye 
anoint  me  king  over  you,  then  come  and  take  refuge  in 


OF  THE  BIBLE  91 

my  shade;  and  if  not,  let  fire  come  out  of  the  bramble, 
and  devour  the  cedars  of  Lebanon. 

There  is  a  briefer  fable  in  2  Kings  14.  9, 
written  by  King  Jehoash  to  Amaziah,  king  of 
Judah,  in  these  words : 

The  thistle  that  was  in  Lebanon  sent  to  the  cedar  that 
was  in  Lebanon,  saying,  Give  thy  daughter  to  my  son 
to  wife:  and  there  passed  by  a  wild  beast  that  was  in 
Lebanon,  and  trod  doivn  the  thistle. 

To  one  who  has  been  reared  in  the  belief 
that  the  only  approach  to  fiction  in  the  Bible 
is  the  parable  it  is  naturally  somewhat  dis- 
concerting to  be  told  that  the  myth  has  any 
place  in  its  literature.  Yet,  if  we  had  not 
been  taught  an  artificial  view  of  the  Scrip- 
tures, we  could  not  hesitate  to  call  mythical 
this  passage  from  the  Epistle  of  Jude: 

But  Michael  the  archangel,  when  contending  with  the 
devil  he  disputed  about  the  body  of  Moses,  durst  not 
bring  against  him  a  railing  judgment,  but  said,  The 
Lord  rebuke  thee. 

One  scarcely  knows  what  to  call  Micaiah's 
Vision  in  1  Kings  22.  19-22.  It  is  not  a  fable 
or  a  parable,  and  it  is  surely  not  history. 

I  saw  Jehovah  sitting  on  his  throne,  and  all  the  host 
of  heaven  standing  by  him  on  his  right  hand  and  on 
his  left.  And  Jehovah  said,  Who  shall  entice  Ahab,  that 
he  may  go  up  and  fall  at  Ramoth-gileadf  And  one  said 
on  this  manner;  and  another  said  on  that  manner.  And 
there  came  forth  a  spirit,  and  stood  before  Jehovah, 
and  said,  I  will  entice  him.  And  Jehovah  said  unto  him, 
Wherewith?  And  he  said,  I  will  go  forth,  and  will  be  a 


92          THE  LITERARY  PRIMACY 

lying  spirit  in  the  mouth  of  all  his  prophets.  And  he 
said,  Thou  shalt  entice  him,  and  shalt  prevail  also:  go 
forth,  and  do  so. 

That  is  a  flight  of  the  imagination,  one  is 
forced  to  admit  on  moral  grounds,  if  there 
were  no  others. 

It  is  on  physical  grounds  that  the  story  of 
Joshua's  command  over  the  sun  and  the  moon, 
as  recorded  in  Josh.  10.  12-14,  is  pronounced 
a  myth: 

Then  spake  Joshua  to  Jehovah  in  the  day  when 
Jehovah  delivered  up  the  Amorites  before  the  children 
of  Israel;  and  he  said  in  the  sight  of  Israel, 

Sun,  stand  thou  still  upon  Gibeon; 

And  thou,  Moon,  in  the  valley  of  Aijalon. 

And  the  sun  stood  still,  and  the  moon  stayed, 

Until   the    nation   had   avenged   themselves   of   their 

enemies. 

Is  not  this  written  in  the  book  of  Jasharf  And  the  sun 
stayed  in  the  midst  of  heaven,  and  hasted  not  to  go  down 
about  a  whole  day.  And  there  was  no  day  like  that 
before  it  or  after  it,  that  Jehovah  hearkened  unto  the 
voice  of  a  man:  for  Jehovah  fought  for  Israel. 

The  sublimity  of  the  poetic  conception  in 
this  passage  must  not  blind  us  to  its  irration- 
ality when  literally  interpreted. 

When  we  pass  to  the  allegory  we  are  on 
territory  that  no  one  will  dispute;  for  the 
Bible  has  the  finest  examples  of  this  figure  to 
be  found  in  literature.  The  distinction  of  the 
allegory  is  that  it  carries  its  own  interpreta- 
tion. In  the  eightieth  psalm  we  have  a  pic- 


OF  THE  BIBLE  93 

ture  of  Israel  as  a  vine  transplanted  from  a 
foreign  clime: 

Thou  broughtest  a  vine  out  of  Egypt; 

Thou  didst  drive  out  the  nations,  and  plantedst  it. 

Thou  preparedst  room-  before  it, 

And  it  took  deep  root,  and  filled  the  land. 

The  mountains  were  covered  with  the  shadow  of  it, 
And  the  boughs  thereof  were  like  cedars  of  God. 

It  sent  out  its  branches  unto  the  sea, 
And  its  shoots  unto  the  River. 

Why  hast  thou  broken  down  its  walls, 

So  that  all  they  that  pass  by  the  way  do  pluck  it? 

The  boar  out  of  the  wood  doth  ravage  it, 
And  the  wild  beasts  of  the  field  feed  on  it. 

Turn  again,  we  beseech  thee,  0  God  of  hosts: 

Look  down  from  heaven,  and  behold,  and  visit  this  vine, 

And  the  stock  which  thy  right  hand  planted, 

And  the  branch  that  thou  madest  strong  for  thyself. 

It  is  burned  with  fire,  it  is  cut  down: 

They  perish  at  the  rebuke  of  thy  countenance. 

In  the  first  seven  verses  of  Isa.  5  we  have 
the  same  figure  wrought  out  more  elaborately : 

Let  me  sing  -for  my  well-beloved  a  song  of  my  beloved 
touching  his  vineyard.  My  well-beloved  had  a  vineyard 
in  a  very  fruitful  hill:  and  he  digged  it,  and  gathered 
out  the  stones  thereof,  and  planted  it  with  the  choicest 
vine,  and  built  a  tower  in  the  midst  of  it,  and  also 
hewed  out  a  winepress  therein:  and  he  looked  that  it 
should  bring  forth  grapes,  and  it  brought  forth  wild 
grapes. 

And  now,   0   inhabitants   of  Jerusalem   and   men   of 


94          THE  LITERARY  PRIMACY 

Judah,  judge,  I  pray  you,  betwixt  me  and  my  vineyard. 
What  could  have  been  done  more  to  my  vineyard,  that 
I  have  not  done  in  it?  Where-fore,  when  I  looked  that 
it  should  bring  -forth  grapes,  brought  it  -forth  wild 
grapes?  And  noiv  I  will  tell  you  what  I  will  do  to  my 
vineyard:  I  will  take  away  the  hedge  thereof,  and  it 
shall  be  eaten  up;  I  will  break  down  the  wall  thereof, 
and  it  shall  be  trodden  down:  and  I  will  lay  it  waste; 
it  shall  not  be  pruned  nor  hoed;  but  there  shall  come 
up  briers  and  thorns:  I  will  also  command  the  clouds 
that  they  rain  no  rain  upon  it.  For  the  vineyard  of 
Jehovah  of  hosts  is  the  house  of  Israel,  and  the  men  of 
Judah  his  pleasant  plant:  and  he  looked  for  justice,  but, 
behold,  oppression;  for  righteousness,  but,  behold,  a  cry. 


In  John  15,  beginning,  "I  am  the  true  vine, 
and  my  Father  is  the  husbandman,"  the  same 
figure  with  a  different  application,  and  for 
another  purpose,  is  employed  by  Jesus. 

The  vine  also  appears  in  a  very  effective 
allegory  by  Ezekiel  (17.  3-10)  known  as  the 
parable  of  Two  Eagles  and  a  Vine,  which  is 
referred  to  in  the  text  as  a  riddle,  which  is  no 
sooner  delivered,  however,  than  it  is  explained 
as  showing  God's  judgment  on  Jerusalem. 
Ezekiel  is  prolific  in  allegorical  pictures.  The 
Lion's  Whelps  (19.  2-9),  and  The  Boiling  Pot 
(24.  3-5)  are  worthy  of  special  attention. 

In  the  twelfth  chapter  of  Ecclesiastes  (2-6) 
there  occurs  an  allegorical  characterization  of 
the  sorrows  and  limitations  of  old  age  which 
is  peerless  in  literature.  When  Tennyson  was 
told  that  his  poem,  The  Ancient  Sage,  was  like 


OF  THE  BIBLE  95 

this,  he  replied,  "I  only  wish  it  were;  I  could 
never  equal  that  description."  The  passage 
is  so  famous  that  it  need  not  be  cited  here, 
but  no  reader  who  is  acquainted  with  the  fea- 
tures of  advanced  age  can  fail  to  perceive  how 
faithfully,  yet  with  what  poetic  beauty,  the 
author  of  this  gem  has  delineated  them.  The 
tribute  of  H.  Rider  Haggard  to  the  whole  of 
Ecclesiastes  may  be  appropriately  quoted  in 
this  connection : 

There  is  one  immortal  work  that  moves  me  still  more 
—a  work  that  utters  all  the  world's  yearning  anguish 
and  disillusionment  in  one  sorrow-laden  and  bitter  cry, 
and  whose  stately  music  thrills  like  the  voice  of  pines 
heard  in  the  darkness  of  a  midnight  gale,  and  that  is  the 
Book  of  Ecclesiastes. 

It  seems  hardly  necessary  to  remark  that 
the  allegory  of  The  Good  Shepherd  ( John  10 ) , 
in  which  Jesus  so  beautifully  describes  himself 
and  his  divine  mission,  is  one  of  the  finest  and 
tenderest  pieces  of  figurative  literature  in  the 
world. 

Nathan's  dramatic  rebuke  of  David  (2  Sam. 
12.  1-7)  contains  an  allegory  which  will  fit- 
tingly introduce  us  to  the  parables  of  Jesus,  as 
it  is  more  distinctly  parabolic  in  its  construc- 
tion than  the  other  allegories  to  which  atten- 
tion has  just  been  directed : 

There  were  two  men  in  one  city;  the  one  rich,  and 
the  other  poor.  The  rich  man  had  exceeding  many  flocks 
and  herds;  but  the  poor  man  had  nothing,  save  one  little 


96          THE  LITERARY  PRIMACY 

ewe  lamb,  which  he  had  bought  and  nourished  up:  and 
it  grew  up  together  with  him,  and  with  his  children;  it 
did  eat  of  his  own  morsel,  and  drank  of  his  own  cup, 
and  lay  in  his  bosom,  and  was  unto  him  as  a  daughter. 
And  there  came  a  traveler  unto  the  rich  man,  and  he 
spared  to  take  of  his  own  flock  and  of  his  own  herd,  to 
dress  for  the  wayfaring  man  that  was  come  unto  him, 
but  took  the  poor  man's  lamb,  and  dressed  it  for  the 
man  that  was  come  to  him. 

And  David's  anger  was  greatly  kindled  against  the 
man;  and  he  said  to  Nathan,  As  Jehovah  liveth,  the  man 
that  hath  done  this  is  worthy  to  die:  and  he  shall 
restore  the  lamb  fourfold,  because  he  did  this  thing,  and 
because  he  had  no  pity. 

And  Nathan  said  to  David,  Thou  art  the  man. 

A  voluminous  literature  has  grown  up 
around  the  parables  of  Jesus,  many  of  which 
have  so  entered  the  common  fund  of  the 
world's  knowledge  that  any  allusion  to  them 
is  immediately  understood.  The  Prodigal  Son 
is  recognized  as  a  story  which  is  reproduced 
in  some  of  its  features  innumerable  times 
wherever  humanity  sins  and  suffers  on  the 
earth,  but  the  compassionate  items  of  which 
are  not  too  frequently  illustrated  in  the  con- 
duct of  mankind.  The  parables  which  set 
forth  the  Kingdom  of  God — and  these  are 
many  and  various — embody  principles  of 
social  adjustment,  in  addition  to  their  spirit- 
ual teachings,  which  are  only  now  coming  to 
their  legitimate  fruition,  the  Christian  world 
having  been  slow  to  perceive  their  profound 
philosophy  for  organized  society,  or  unwilling 


OF  THE  BIBLE  97 

to  apply  them  to  the  problems  of  the  State. 
The  Good  Samaritan  has  captivated  humanity, 
even  those  who  fail  to  emulate  the  example 
of  that  noble  heretic  feeling  the  highest  admi- 
ration for  his  virtues.  The  Rich  Fool  has  his 
counterpart  in  modern  society,  and  is  con- 
stantly stimulating  the  drift  to  Socialism,  the 
average  man  not  having  yet  taken  into  his 
mind  the  aphorism  with  which  the  parable  is 
illuminated,  "A  man's  life  consisteth  not  in 
the  abundance  of  the  things  which  he  possess- 
eth."  The  Pharisee  and  the  Publican  have 
passed  into  the  proverbial  speech  of  the  people. 
The  Unrighteous  Steward  is  still  a  puzzle  for 
all  who  cannot  realize  the  devotion  of  Jesus 
to  the  paradox  as  a  means  of  arresting  atten- 
tion, or  who  cannot  see  that  religion  will  not 
prosper  as  it  should  without  common  sense. 
Dives  and  Lazarus  carry  us  into  the  invisible 
world,  and  thus  take  us  out  of  the  range  of 
things  conformable  to  our  experience  or  obser- 
vation. This  is  one  of  the  parables  which  form 
an  exception  to  the  terms  in  which  they  have 
previously  been  described.  Only  in  a  profound 
spiritual  sense  can  possibility  or  probability 
be  predicated  of  its  scenery.  But  why  continue 
to  specify  in  respect  to  riches  which  are  open 
to  all,  and  which  can  be  readily  apprehended 
by  all?  They  lie  before  us  in  the  New  Testa- 
ment, a  glittering  array,  unexcelled  in  the 


98          THE  LITEEAEY  PRIMACY 

literature  of  the  world  for  the  glories  which 
distinguish  their  class. 

Before  passing  to  the  consideration  of  works 
in  the  Bible  more  closely  resembling  the  fiction 
of  modern  times,  and  standing  apart  by  them- 
selves as  the  highest  and  most  extended  ex- 
amples of  this  species  of  writing  to  be  found 
in  the  sacred  Scriptures,  it  is  well  to  pause 
for  brief  mention  of  two  stories  which,  while 
they  have  an  historical  foundation,  are  doubt- 
less embellished  with  fictitious  investiture. 
The  first  is  the  book  of  Ruth,  which  Goethe 
called  "the  loveliest  specimen  of  epic  and 
idyllic  poetry  which  we  possess,"  and  of  which 
Humboldt  said,  "The  little  book  of  the  gleaner 
Ruth  presents  us  with  a  charming  and  ex- 
quisitely simple  picture  of  nature." 

The  Hebrews  were  accustomed  to  put  the 
book  of  Ruth  and  the  Psalms  together,  the 
former  being  prefixed  to  the  Psalter  in  order 
to  glorify  David,  who  was  sprung  from  the 
line  of  Ruth.  That  was  at  a  time  when  a 
larger  number  of  the  psalms  were  attributed 
to  David  than  are  now  ascribed  to  his  author- 
ship. There  is  an  unquestioned  historical 
background  to  this  fascinating  romance,  but 
its  charm  consists  in  the  delicate  sweetness 
which  breathes  through  its  whole  extent,  in 
its  restrained  treatment  of  episodes  which  an 
awkward  writer  would  have  ruined  with  vul- 


OF  THE  BIBLE  99 

garity,  and  in  its  refinement  of  feeling.  Ruth's 
loving  protest  to  Naomi  is  immortal : 

Entreat  me  not  to  leave  thee,  and  to  return  from 
following  after  thee;  for  whither  thou  goest,  I  will  go; 
and  where  thou  lodgest,  I  will  lodge;  thy  people  shall 
be  my  people,  and  thy  God  my  God;  where  thou  diest, 
will  I  die,  and  there  will  I  be  buried. 

Of  the  book  of  Esther  Professor  E.  G.  Moul- 
ton  says  that  it  is  "saved  from  being  an  excit- 
ing novel  with  a  double  plot  only  by  the  acci- 
dent of  its  being  true."  That  it  is  certainly 
history  not  all  critics  are  agreed.  Though  it 
may  have  a  definite  basis  of  fact,  its  power 
as  literature  consists  in  the  deft  way  in  which 
its  materials  are  used.  Its  admission  to  the 
Canon  of  Scripture  has  been  a  scandal  to  some 
because  it  nowhere  contains  the  name  of  God. 
Luther,  who  was  plagued  by  the  same  artificial 
view  of  the  imperative  requirement  for  pro- 
nouncedly theological  teachings  in  any  work 
recognized  as  biblical  that  has  caused  trouble 
to  so  many  other  people,  expressed  the  devout 
wish  that  neither  Esther  nor  her  book  had  ever 
existed.  No  student  of  literature  will  sympa- 
thize with  this  desire.  Though  the  spirit  of 
revenge  is  exhibited  in  the  book,  it  is  an  ac- 
companiment of  a  not  unworthy  patriotism, 
while  the  doctrine  of  Divine  Providence  is  as 
thoroughly  illustrated  in  this  story  as  in  any 
of  the  events  of  history  which  Americans 


100        THE  LITERARY  PRIMACY 

fondly  regard  as  evidence  that  the  Lord  of 
hosts  has  been  with  their  people. 

In  the  book  of  Jonah  we  finally  come  upon 
a  work  of  fiction  in  which  the  cunning  of  the 
true  artist  is  most  felicitously  displayed.  It 
has  been  the  object  of  ridicule  by  those  whose 
shallow  minds  seek  even  the  most  superficial 
occasions  of  pointing  the  finger  of  scorn  at 
the  Bible,  and  it  has  been  victimized  by  those 
whose  unwise  zeal  for  the  defense  of  the  Bible 
has  betrayed  them  into  false  views  of  the  mode 
of  interpreting  it.  Ten  thousand  cheap  wits 
have  made  merry  over  these  words:  "And 
Jehovah  prepared  a  great  fish  to  swallow  up 
Jonah ;  and  Jonah  was  in  the  belly  of  the  fish 
three  days  and  three  nights.  Then  Jonah 
prayed  unto  Jehovah  his  God  out  of  the  fish's 
belly  .  .  .  And  Jehovah  spake  unto  the  fish, 
and  it  vomited  out  Jonah  upon  the  dry  land." 
While  the  mockers  are  making  sport  of  this 
alleged  historical  absurdity,  they  overlook, 
after  the  manner  of  their  ilk,  the  lofty  spirit- 
ual teachings  of  the  story  as  developed,  and, 
of  course,  have  no  time,  and  in  most  instances, 
no  ability,  to  observe  the  admirable  literary 
workmanship  of  this  production. 

The  reasons  for  regarding  the  book  of  Jonah 
a  work  of  fiction  lie  much  deeper  than  those 
physical  difficulties  on  which  the  scorners 


OF  THE  BIBLE  101 

., 

•  - 
dilate  with  such  humorous  zest.     The  prayer 

which  Jonah  is  represented  as  offering  within 
the  belly  of  the  fish  is  a  poetical  mosaic  of 
phrases  from  the  Psalms,  and  is  evidently  the 
product  of  patient  care  such  as  no  man  would 
exercise  in  the  doleful  and  tragic  circum- 
stances which  terrified  Jonah.  Furthermore, 
it  is  rather  an  offering  of  thanksgiving  for 
deliverance  after  the  event  than  a  prayer  for 
rescue  during  the  depressing  experience.  It 
shows  the  undeniable  marks  of  having  been 
inserted  in  the  narrative  for  the  sake  of  its 
own  admirable  qualities,  and  not  because  of 
any  element  of  naturalness  to  the  situation 
which  it  possessed.  Moreover,  the  churlish 
traits  which  Jonah  is  made  to  exhibit  as  the 
story  proceeds  compel  us  to  hope  that  the 
historic  person  whose  name  bears  the  shame 
of  their  ugliness  wras  not  actually  guilty  of 
such  ignominious  tempers. 

After  having  attempted  to  flee  from  his  duty, 
for  which  he  received  a  merited  punishment, 
and  having  been  delivered  from  a  loathsome 
predicament,  he  is  commissioned  anewr  to  go 
to  Nineveh  and  declare  that  in  forty  days  that 
great  and  wicked  city  is  to  be  destroyed.  In 
response  to  his  strident  warnings,  the  inhabit- 
ants repent  like  sensible  persons,  on  hearing 
the  doom  that  will  overtake  them  if  they  per- 
sist in  their  iniquities.  They  had  a  good 


102        THE  LITERARY  PRIMACY 

• 

opinion  of  Jehovah,  and  believed  that  if  they 
turned  from  their  sins  he  would  spare  them. 
A  great  and  notable  fast  was  proclaimed,  and 
their  expectation  concerning  Jehovah's  clem- 
ency was  justified.  He  did  not  destroy  them. 

That  was  a  beautiful  and  characteristic 
thing  in  Jehovah,  but  it  did  not  gratify  Jonah. 
It  displeased  him  exceedingly.  He  said  in 
effect:  "This  is  the  very  thing  I  feared.  I 
knew  what  sort  of  person  Jehovah  is,  gracious, 
merciful,  slow  to  anger,  and  of  great  kindness ; 
and  this  is  why  I  fled  toward  Tarshish  in  the 
first  place.  I  felt  certain  that  Jehovah  would 
be  considerate  of  these  Ninevites.  It  has 
turned  out  precisely  so.  Now  let  Jehovah  take 
away  my  life ;  it  is  better  that  I  should  die ;  I 
am  a  discredited  prophet." 

Then  Jonah  sulks  outside  the  city  to  see 
what  will  happen.  It  is  exceedingly  hot.  A 
rapidly  growing  gourd  springs  up  to  refresh 
him  with  its  shade,  and  he  is  appropriately 
grateful.  Let  the  rest  of  the  story  be  told  in 
the  words  of  the  text: 

But  God  prepared  a  worm  when  the  morning  rose 
the  next  day,  and  it  smote  the  gourd,  that  it  withered. 
And  it  came  to  pass,  when  the  sun  arose,  that  God  pre- 
pared a  sultry  east  wind;  and  the  sun  beat  upon  the 
head  of  Jonah,  that  he  fainted,  and  requested  for  him- 
self that  he  might  die,  and  said,  It  is  better  for  me  to 
die  than  to  live.  And  God  said  to  Jonah,  Doest  thou 
well  to  be  angry  for  the  gourd?  And  he  said,  I  do  well 


OF  THE  BIBLE  103 

to  be  angry,  even  unto  death.  And  Jehovah  said,  Thou 
hast  had  regard  for  the  gourd,  for  which  thou  hast  not 
labored,  neither  madest  it  grow;  which  came  up  in  a 
night,  and  perished  in  a  night:  and  should  not  I  have 
regard  for  Nineveh,  that  great  city,  wherein  are  more 
than  sixscore  thousand  persons  that  cannot  discern  be- 
tween their  right  hand  and  their  left  hand;  and  also 
much  cattle  f 

What  a  noble  rebuke  to  intolerance  and 
pride  and  selfishness!  How  fraught  with 
knowledge  of  certain  ignoble  features  of 
human  nature  is  the  entire  story,  and  what  a 
sublime  conception  of  God's  mercy  it  conveys ! 
In  the  face  of  the  nobility  of  this  book,  how 
puerile  it  is  to  quibble  over  the  incredibility 
of  the  tale,  as  though  it  were  of  larger  impor- 
tance to  establish  its  historicity  than  to  absorb 
its  teachings. 

As  a  piece  of  literature  it  justifies  the  aston- 
ishment which  Charles  Reade  the  novelist  con- 
fessed with  regard  to  the  amazing  effects 
produced  by  the  biblical  writers  by  means  of 
a  few  slight  touches.  He  observed  that  in 
many  instances  they  made  a  more  lasting  im- 
pression with  their  scanty  lines  than  other 
famous  waiters  have  achieved  through  an 
abundance  of  description.  One  reading  of  the 
book  of  Jonah  with  this  contrast  in  mind  will 
be  sufficient  to  demonstrate  the  truthfulness 
of  it  in  this  example  at  least. 

The  literary  wonders  of  the  book  of  Job  have 


104        THE  LITEKAKY  PRIMACY 

already  been  touched  upon.  A  hasty  con- 
sideration of  it  as  a  dramatic  composition 
must  conclude  this  imperfect  outline  of  the 
fiction  of  the  Bible.  The  critics  are  uncertain 
of  the  date  which  should  be  affixed  to  this 
work,  though  they  insist  on  assigning  it  to  a 
much  later  period  than  it  was  formerly  sup- 
posed to  indicate.  Still  the  probability  is 
strong  that  before  ^Eschylus,  Sophocles,  and 
Euripides  had  charmed  the  Greeks  with  their 
immortal  dramas,  and  certainly  long  before 
their  Koman  imitators  had  sought  to  beguile 
the  Latin  peoples  with  their  productions,  this 
great  dramatic  masterpiece  had  fallen  from 
the  deft  fingers  of  an  unknown  writer. 

Unlike  the  compositions  of  the  dramatists 
of  the  classic  world,  this  work  was  probably 
never  produced  on  a  stage.  Many  of  the  finest 
dramas  in  other  languages  have  undergone  the 
same  experience.  Nor  is  it  indispensable  that 
a  work  of  such  a  character  should  have  objec- 
tive representation  in  order  that  its  values 
should  be  appreciated.  It  has  been  held  that 
even  Shakespeare  may  be  better  understood, 
his  marvelous  studies  of  human  nature,  his 
deep  insight  into  the  spirit  of  man,  his  wise 
philosophy,  may  be  more  profitably  studied, 
and  his  characters  be  more  keenly  relished  by 
the  thoughtful  student  of  his  lines  without 
the  interference  of  the  mimic  art  than  by 


OF  THE  BIBLE  105 

watching  the  actor  trying  to  interpret  figures, 
which,  as  Charles  Lamb  said  about  King  Lear, 
are  incapable  of  being  intelligently  and  ade- 
quately expressed  on  the  stage. 

But  dramatic  literature  affords  such  an 
opportunity  for  vivid  recital  as  cannot  be 
found  in  any  other  form.  Its  movement  is 
quick,  its  portrayal  sharp,  and  its  exhibition 
of  passion  intense.  The  author  of  Job  has 
availed  himself  of  these  advantages,  and  in 
the  daring  colloquies  of  Jehovah  and  Satan, 
in  the  dialogues  of  Job  and  his  three  com- 
panions, and  in  the  final  challenge  of  Jehovah 
to  Job  followed  by  Job's  admission  of  his  fault, 
he  has  magnificently  displayed  the  art  of  the 
dramatist.  It  is  only  by  permitting  this  fact 
to  be  always  existent  in  one's  thought  as  this 
work  is  being  read  that  the  truest  view  of 
its  greatness  as  literature  will  be  obtained. 

II 

If  the  literature  of  any  other  people  than 
the  Hebrews  were  discovered  to  be  totally 
devoid  of  humor,  we  should  consider  it  a  strik- 
ing anomaly,  and  if  we  were  told  that  this 
deficiency  was  the  inevitable  result  of  the 
sanctity  attaching  to  the  literature  itself,  we 
should  be  tempted  to  guess  that  some  redactor, 
jealous  of  its  reputation,  had  purged  it  of  what 


106        THE  LITEEARY  PEIMACY 

lie  conceived  to  be  its  incongruities.  Nothing 
of  this  sort  has  occurred  with  the  Bible,  though 
so  celebrated  and  gifted  a  student  of  the  bibli- 
cal literature  as  Professor  E.  G.  Moulton 
ventured  to  write  that,  "with  the  single  excep- 
tion of  humorous  literature,  for  which  the 
Hebrew  temperament  has  little  fitness,  the 
Bible  presents  as  varied  an  intellectual  food 
as  can  be  found  in  any  national  literature." 
Carlyle  and  Eenan  also  held  that  the  Hebrew 
genius  did  not  possess  the  gift  of  humor,  a 
judgment  which  is  refuted  by  the  literary 
remains  of  several  mediaeval  and  modern  Jews, 
as  well  as  by  notable  examples  in  the  Talmud, 
with  which  many  readers  are  familiar. 

Doubtless  a  particular  kind  of  discernment 
is  essential  to  the  proper  evaluation  of  Hebrew 
humor.  There  are  temperamental  idiosyn- 
crasies with  which  one  must  reckon  in  estimat- 
ing Jewish  letters,  as  is  the  case  with  any  other 
literature  in  which  one  was  not  bred.  It  is 
no  detraction  from  the  excellence  of  Aris- 
tophanes that  some  of  his  jokes  require  eluci- 
dation for  the  mind  unfamiliar  with  the  life  of 
the  Greeks,  and  it  would  be  most  uncritical 
to  deny  the  existence  of  humor  in  the  Bible 
simply  because  it  is  not  recognized  by  all 
readers.  Indeed,  an  immense  amount  of 
laborious  dullness  has  been  expended  on  the 
vain  effort  to  formulate  a  definition  of  humor 


OF  THE  BIBLE  107 

upon  which  all  the  wiseacres  of  the  world  can 
agree. 

Though  humor  is,  perhaps,  the  least  appar- 
ent element  in  the  literature  of  the  Bible,  rich 
veins  of  it  are  disclosed  to  one  who  has  a  feel- 
ing for  its  subtleties  and  some  knowledge  of 
the  language  in  which  it  is  expressed  and  of 
the  racial  peculiarities  out  of  which  it  springs. 
It  would  be  preposterous  to  class  the  Bible 
with  facetious  books,  and  one  reason  for  the 
failure  justly  to  appraise  its  humor  is  our 
proneness  to  test  it  by  our  modern  ideas  of  the 
comic.  This  is  a  fatal  and  perfectly  irrational 
blunder.  The  Hebrew  consciousness  expressed 
itself  in  moral  and  religious  modes.  It  is  this 
which  differentiates  its  literature,  in  large 
part,  from  that  of  other  races.  There  is  a 
decided  flavor  of  morality  in  all  genuine 
humor,  but  this  quality  is  preeminently  dis- 
played in  the  humor  of  the  Bible. 

In  defending  the  propriety  of  employing 
humor  in  religious  discourses  an  English 
clergyman  has  very  justly  said:  "If  you  can- 
not make  men  ashamed  of  doing  wrong,  you 
may  often  make  them  afraid  of  being  ridicu- 
lous. A  man  who  does  not  feel  that  he  is  sinful 
may  often  be  convinced  that  he  is  absurd." 
The  humor  of  the  Bible  serves  this  precise 
purpose.  Its  exposures  of  the  folly  of  a  sinful 
life  are  all  the  more  effective  because  they 


108        THE  LITERARY  PRIMACY 


are  in  many  instances  suffused  with  a  humor- 
ous quality.  Said  Hazlitt,  "Sir,  I  am  a  meta- 
physician, and  nothing  makes  an  impression 
upon  me  but  abstract  ideas."  So  there  are 
abnormally  serious  souls  who  see  only  theo- 
logical values  in  many  Scripture  narratives 
which  are  actually  drenched  with  humor.  In 
order  to  recognize  and  relish  this  humor  one 
must  put  off  the  prepossession  that  the  Bible 
is  uniformly  solemn,  and  divest  himself  of  the 
impression  that  it  is  sacrilege  to  smile  at  any- 
thing in  the  Scriptures.  He  will  then  discover 
that  there  is  much  humor  in  the  stories  of  the 
Bible  which  is  not  intentional,  perhaps,  on  the 
part  of  the  writers,  but  is  inseparable  from 
the  facts  which  they  record.  This  may  be 
called  the  humor  inherent  in  a  situation,  of 
which  we  take  a  few  examples. 

It  is  difficult  to  understand  how  any  person 
who  is  susceptible  of  humorous  ideas  can  read 
the  history  of  the  Israelites  in  the  Wilderness 
without  being  provoked  to  innocent  mirth  as 
he  observes  the  foibles  and  follies  of  human 
nature  breaking  out  in  the  ludicrous  perform- 
ances of  the  chosen  people.  The  absurd 
apology  of  Aaron  for  yielding  to  the  equally 
ridiculous  plea  of  the  Israelites  for  tangible 
gods  (Exod.  32.  22-24)  would  invariably  excite 
the  risibilities  of  pious  readers  if  they  were 
not  awed  into  solemnity  by  the  reflection  that 


OF  THE  BIBLE  109 

the  narrative  is  sacred.  A  similar  effect  would 
be  produced  by  the  protest  of  the  people 
against  the  everlasting  monotony  of  their  bill 
of  fare  and  their  lusting  for  the  varied  diet  of 
their  Egyptian  bondage  (Num.  11.  4,  5)  if  the 
reader  were  not  restrained  from  realizing  the 
unconscious  humor  of  a  ludicrous  situation  by 
an  artificial  conception  of  the  Bible  as  litera- 
ture. Many  like  illustrations  in  the  Old  Testa- 
ment will  occur  to  the  mind  intent  upon  find- 
ing them,  which  for  the  lack  of  space  are  not 
here  set  down.  If  we  turn  to  the  New  Testa- 
ment, we  discover  in  the  childishness  of  the 
disciples  shades  of  humor,  which  were  prob- 
ably unobserved  by  themselves,  but  which  are 
obvious  enough  to  others.  The  ignoble  striving 
of  some  of  the  twelve  for  precedence ;  the  naive 
indignation  of  the  rest  of  the  company,  who 
were  perhaps  just  as  emulous  but  less  candid; 
the  prating  of  those  fishermen  about  the  sacri- 
fice involved  in  abandoning  their  precarious 
means  of  a  livelihood  to  follow  Jesus,  and  their 
solicitude  respecting  the  reward  they  might 
expect  for  such  an  amazing  act  of  self-denial ; 
the  absurd  and  frantic  eagerness  of  Peter  to 
thrust  himself  forward  in  every  conversation, 
whether  he  understood  the  matter  or  not — 
these  are  examples  of  the  humor  inherent  in 
a  situation,  which  the  frank  writers  of  the 
Gospels  have  preserved  for  our  instruction, 


110        THE  LITEKARY  PRIMACY 

and  which  we  may  wisely  read  with  a  recog- 
nition of  their  pathetic  humor,  though  those 
wrho  recorded  them  possibly  only  saw  the  pain- 
ful aspects  of  each  incident. 

The  authors  of  some  of  the  biblical  stories, 
however,  must  have  been  conscious  of  the 
humor  playing  like  sunbeams  upon  their  lines. 
The  book  of  Jonah  is  pervaded  by  a  subtle 
humor  from  which  it  seems  strange  that  any- 
one should  be  obtuse  enough  to  escape.  The 
superficial  persons  who  giggle  over  the  great 
fish  which  is  represented  as  first  swallowing 
and  then  disgorging  the  recreant  prophet,  and 
look  no  farther,  miss  the  finest  elements  of 
humor  in  the  entertaining  tale.  The  meshes 
of  their  minds  are  so  coarse  that  the  more 
delicate  items  slip  through.  The  preposterous 
mood  of  Jonah  when  he  witnesses  the  repent- 
ance of  Nineveh  can  scarcely  fail  to  provoke 
a  smile  in  us  if  we  are  sensitive  to  its  pitiful 
absurdity.  The  lugubrious  wail  of  the  prophet 
for  death  because  forsooth  he  is  a  discredited 
foreteller  of  events  is  as  fine  a  stroke  at  pom- 
pous self-esteem  as  one  can  find  in  any  litera- 
ture. The  pungent  humor  of  the  divine  para- 
ble of  the  gourd  is  superb.  If  we  found  this 
story  in  Turgenieff  we  should  unhesitatingly 
applaud  its  cleverness,  but  discovering  it  in 
the  Bible  we  pull  a  long  face  and  solemnly 
set  about  to  prove  its  historicity  in  order  to 


OF  THE  BIBLE  111 

protect  its  sanctity;  not  realizing  that,  even 
if  it  were  shown  to  be  pure  fiction,  it  would 
still  contain  some  of  the  richest  spiritual 
teachings  in  the  Scriptures. 

Perhaps  the  most  admirable  example  of  folk- 
lore humor  in  the  Bible,  and  one  of  the  best 
in  any  literature,  is  the  fascinating  story  of 
Samson,  who  is  not  only  portrayed  as  rioting 
in  practical  jokes,  but  also  as  being  a  genuine 
wit.  The  disasters  which  mark  his  life  and 
the  tragedy  with  which  it  concludes  only  serve 
to  bring  out  more  clearly  the  frolicsome  spirit 
of  the  man.  Bunyan's  lines  are  appropriate : 

Some  things  are  of  that  nature  as  to  make 
One's  fancy  chuckle  while  his  heart  doth  ache. 

The  pathos  of  Samson's  folly  need  not  deter 
us  from  appreciating  the  humor  of  his  per- 
formances. This  accretion  of  tales  around  the 
memory  of  a  popular  hero  is  one  of  the  most 
delicious  bits  of  literary  art  in  the  Bible  or 
out  of  it,  and  has  furnished  poets  and  dra- 
matists with  one  of  the  most  fruitful  themes 
upon  which  they  could  engage  their  talents. 
The  wit  of  Samson's  riddle,  propounded  as  a 
wager  at  his  own  wedding  feast,  is  obvious 
to  all  as  soon  as  the  circumstances  which 
originated  it  are  apprehended:  "Out  of  the 
eater  came  forth  meat,  and  out  of  the  strong 
came  forth  sweetness."  One  can  see  the  sunny- 


112        THE  LITERARY  PRIMACY 

haired  giant  gleefully  felicitating  himself  on 
the  impossibility  of  his  competitors  ever  guess- 
ing the  secret  of  the  honey  in  the  lion's  carcass. 
The  way  in  which  he  paid  the  wager,  when  it 
had  been  lost  through  the  treachery  of  his 
bride,  illustrates  the  man's  sense  of  humor: 
"And  he  went  down  to  Ashkelon,  and  slew 
thirty  men  of  them,  and  took  their  spoil,  and 
gave  change  of  garments  unto  them  which 
expounded  the  riddle."  One  can  imagine  him 
smacking  his  lips  over  the  grim  jest  of  making 
his  enemies  pay  his  debt  of  honor.  The  same 
spirit  is  manifest  in  his  slaying  of  a  thousand 
men  with  the  jawbone  of  an  ass.  He  evidently 
takes  a  sardonic  delight  in  the  instrument  with 
which  he  accomplishes  this  bloody  feat,  for 
he  makes  a  pun  about  it  which  it  is  impossible 
to  reproduce  in  translation.  The  word  chamor 
which  he  employs  has  two  meanings:  an  ass 
and  a  heap.  A  modern  Hebrew  scholar,  Dr.  J. 
Chotzner,  has  attempted  to  bring  out  the 
humor  of  the  words  describing  Samson's  exul- 
tation over  his  triumph  by  the  following  para- 
phrase : 

With  the  jawbone  of  an  ass 
Have  I  plenteous  asses  slain; 

Smitten  thus  it  came  to  pass 
Fell  a  thousand  on  the  plain. 

The   drastic    quality    of    Samson's    humor 
appears  again  in  the  episode  of  the  three  hun- 


OF  THE  BIBLE  113 

dred  foxes  sent  scurrying  through  the  corn- 
fields of  the  Philistines  with  firebrands  tied 
to  their  tails.  One  can  easily  fancy  the  reck- 
less jester  clapping  his  hands  and  prancing 
about  with  unholy  joy  as  he  beholds  the  con- 
flagration he  has  produced.  In  all  his  feats 
of  prodigious  strength  and  agility  the  same 
humorous  feeling  is  discoverable.  His  snap- 
ping the  cords  with  which  his  enemies  have 
bound  him  for  delivery  into  the  hands  of  the 
Philistines,  his  carrying  off  the  gates  of  Gaza 
and  depositing  them  upon  the  hill  before 
Hebron — in  fact,  all  of  the  adventures  which 
signalize  his  stormy  career  are  shot  through 
with  a  mischieveous  spirit  of  fun.  He  evi- 
dently luxuriates  in  his  vindictive  buffoonery. 
Nor  is  this  wanton  gladness  absent  from  his 
unfortunate  experiences  with  his  Philistine 
paramour.  Each  time  he  fools  her  about  the 
secret  of  his  strength  laughter  shakes  his  pon- 
derous frame  and  mockery  pours  from  his  lips. 
He  revels  in  the  deception  of  which  she  is  the 
pouting  victim.  When  finally  he  surrenders 
to  the  blandishments  of  Delilah,  and  compasses 
his  own  ruin  by  telling  the  truth  about  himself, 
the  first  impression  upon  his  mind  seems  to 
be  scarcely  more  serious  than  that  the  biter 
has  been  bitten  at  last.  The  joke  is  on  him : 
"He  wist  not  that  the  Lord  was  departed  from 
him."  When  the  fatality  of  his  situation 


114        THE  LITERARY  PRIMACY 

dawns  upon  him  his  inveterate  humor  still 
survives.  His  position  is  deplorable  enough — 
a  blind  slave  making  sport  for  his  hereditary 
foes.  Nevertheless  he  will  extract  a  morbid 
gratification  from  his  misfortunes.  He  will 
add  a  climax  to  all  his  rude  jokes  upon  his 
enemies  by  making  them  die  with  him.  He 
pulls  down  the  building  in  which  they  are 
making  merry  and  they  perish  like  cattle.  The 
very  grotesqueness  of  it  mitigates  the  gloom 
of  the  catastrophe.  Tears  and  smiles  lie  close 
together.  The  writer  of  the  narrative  records 
with  ill-concealed  satisfaction:  "So  the  dead 
which  he  slew  at  his  death  were  more  than 
they  which  he  slew  in  his  life."  The  fun  is  fast 
and  furious,  though  senseless  and  sinful,  to 
the  last.  We  are  to  remember  that  Samson 
is  not  the  only  man  who  has  made  a  grim  jest 
of  death,  whose  life  has  been  a  thoughtless 
frolic. 

We  laugh  at  Samson,  though  we  realize  that 
he  made  a  sorry  fool  of  himself,  knowing  that 
the  fool  is  one  of  the  staple  articles  in  the 
humorist's  wares.  Without  his  kind  the  wit 
would  find  his  occupation  gone.  Were  all 
humanity  of  flawless  wisdom  it  is  difficult  to 
see  how  the  contrasts  and  incongruities  which 
are  so  vital  to  humor  could  be  conceived.  The 
Bible  deals  more  severely  with  fools  than  does 
other  literature,  because  its  writers  are  so 


OF  THE  BIBLE  115 

deeply  concerned  with  the  moral  aspects  of 
folly.  Yet  even  they  base  their  diagnosis  of 
the  fool  on  irresponsibility,  rashness,  and  lack 
of  common  sense  characteristic  of  their  class; 
a  kind  of  egotistical  self-sufficiency  and 
absence  of  self-restraint,  coupled  with  exces- 
sive love  of  talk  and  itch  for  disputation;  all 
of  which  traits  reach  their  acutest  stage  in 
the  crowning  stupidity  of  a  foolish  life — 
opposition  to  the  will  of  God. 

It  is  in  the  Wisdom  literature  of  the  Old 
Testament — Job,  Proverbs,  Ecclesiastes,  and 
certain  psalms  and  prophecies — that  the  fool 
receives  most  elaborate  attention.  The  points 
of  humorous  criticism  to  which  he  is  subjected 
in  these  writings  are  so  familiar  to  students 
of  the  Bible  and  so  numerous  that  specific  cita- 
tions do  not  seem  necessary  or  desirable. 
Though  the  author  of  Ecclesiastes  is  com- 
monly regarded  as  sounding  a  melancholy 
note,  a  modern  critic  has  ventured  to  say  of 
Koheleth :  "His  humor  is  mostly  of  the  cheer- 
ful order;  and  far  from  weeping  over  the 
foibles  and  follies  of  the  human  race,  he  makes 
merry  over  them."  The  contentious  woman, 
the  slothful  man,  the  meddler  with  other 
people's  affairs,  the  person  with  itching  ears, 
the  trader  who  brags  of  a  sharp  bargain — 
these  and  many  more  are  etched  in  epigrams 
which  provoke  mirth  in  this  wisdom  literature. 


116        THE  LITERARY  PRIMACY 

The  vanities  of  worldliness  are  delineated  in 
a  way  to  excite  a  smile  of  philosophic  scorn. 
With  these  amusing  bits  of  wisdom  may  be 
compared  the  broader  rebukes  of  arrogance 
and  ambition  contained  in  the  Fable  of  Jotham 
(Judg.  9.  8-15)  and  the  Apologue  of  Jehoash 
(2  Kings  14.  9)  to  which  reference  has  already 
been  made  in  discussing  fiction. 

It  will  be  objected  by  some  that  those  ex- 
posures of  human  folly  are  so  satirical  as  not 
properly  to  be  classed  with  humor,  which  is 
gentle  and  good-natured.  It  is  significant, 
however,  that  Thackeray,  who  is  entitled  to 
be  called  an  authority,  and  whose  definition 
of  humor  as  "a  mixture  of  love  and  wit"  has 
been  widely  accepted,  in  his  lectures  on  the 
English  humorists  of  the  eighteenth  century 
actually  begins  with  Swift,  whose  temper  was 
vitriolic.  It  is  in  this  first  lecture  of  the  series 
that  he  says :  "The  humorous  writer  professes 
to  awaken  and  direct  your  love,  your  pity, 
your  kindness — your  scorn  for  untruth,  pre- 
tension, imposture — your  tenderness  for  the 
weak,  the  poor,  the  oppressed,  the  unhappy. 
.  .  .  He  takes  upon  himself  to  be  the  week-day 
preacher,  so  to  speak."  It  would  seem,  then, 
that  the  gentle  humorist  may  be  severe  if  his 
motive  be  benevolent. 

The  absurdity  of  idol  worship  is  a  favorite 
subject  of  caricature  with  the  prophets,  admir- 


OF  THE  BIBLE  117 

able  examples  of  which  are  to  be  found  in 
Isaiah  (44)  and  Jeremiah  (10)  and  elsewhere. 
Everybody  notices  the  grim  humor  of  Elijah's 
suggestion  to  the  priests  of  Baal  on  Mount 
Carmel :  "Cry  aloud,  for  he  is  a  god ;  either 
he  is  talking,  or  he  is  pursuing,  or  he  is  in  a 
journey,  or  peradventure  he  sleepeth,  and  must 
be  awaked."  Job's  famous  rejoinder  to  his 
tormentors  is  appreciated  by  the  dullest  mind : 
"No  doubt  but  ye  are  the  people,  and  wisdom 
shall  die  with  you."  Other  equally  humorous 
bits  may  be  culled  from  the  wonderful  book 
which  bears  his  name.  Irony  is  employed  with 
much  effect  by  the  apostle  Paul,  who  is  pro- 
ficient in  almost  every  rhetorical  expedient,  to 
whom  also  a  variety  of  puns  may  be  accredited. 
There  is  no  resisting  this  stroke  at  the  self- 
assurance  of  some  of  his  followers:  "Now  ye 
are  full,  now  ye  are  rich,  ye  have  reigned  as 
kings  without  us :  and  I  would  God  that  ye 
did  reign,  that  we  also  might  reign  with  you. 
.  .  .  We  are  fools  for  Christ's  sake,  but  ye  are 
wise  in  Christ ;  we  are  weak,  but  ye  are  strong ; 
ye  are  honorable,  but  we  are  despised"  ( 1  Cor. 
4.  8,  10).  Of  similar  quality  is  this  admoni- 
tion, "If  ye  bite  and  devour  one  another,  take 
heed  that  ye  be  not  consumed  of  one  another" 
(Gal.  5.  15). 

No  one  questions  that  Jesus  was  a  master 
of  ironical  speech.     "Many  good  works  have 


118        THE  LITERARY  PRIMACY 

I  showed  you  from  my  Father;  for  which  of 
these  do  you  stone  me?"  he  asks  of  his  enemies. 
"When  thou  doest  thine  alms,  do  not  sound  a 
trumpet  before  thee,  as  the  hypocrites  do  in 
the  synagogues  and  in  the  streets/'  he  admon- 
ishes his  disciples.  Though  the  scholars  tell 
us  that  there  is  no  proof  that  the  Pharisees 
ever  did  such  a  ludicrous  thing,  yet  the  spirit 
of  it  endures  to  our  time,  and  derision  is  the 
only  effective  method  of  discouraging  it.  The 
parable  of  the  unjust  steward  is  a  masterpiece 
of  satire.  When  Jesus  compares  his  genera- 
tion to  children  playing  feast  and  funeral,  and 
complaining  of  one  another,  "We  have  piped 
unto  you,  and  ye  have  not  danced;  we  have 
mourned  unto  you,  and  ye  have  not  wept,"  his 
criticism  must  have  brought  a  smile  to  the 
faces  of  those  who  heard  him. 

One  cannot  speak  of  the  humor  of  Jesus 
without  the  utmost  delicacy;  he  must  not  in 
the  slightest  degree  abate  his  reverence  for  the 
Divine  Saviour.  Nevertheless,  it  is  to  be  re- 
membered that  the  Son  of  Mary  was  a  whole 
man,  and  that  to  ascribe  anything  abnormal 
to  his  human  nature  is  to  do  violence  to  any 
reasonable  and  scriptural  interpretation  of 
his  person.  When  we  recall  certain  traditions 
of  our  Lord  from  extracanonical  sources, 
which  have  been  preserved  by  orthodox  Chris- 
tians of  primitive  times  with  the  apparent  feel- 


OF  THE  BIBLE  119 

ing  that  these  might  in  part  be  authentic,  we 
are  inclined  to  wonder  whether  a  certain  re- 
serve may  not  have  prevented  the  evangelists 
from  recording  humorous  incidents  and  say- 
ings of  his  life  with  which  they  were  familiar. 
Are  not  we  also  affected  by  an  artificial 
veneration  and  a  fragmentary  conception  of 
Christ's  nature  to  such  an  extent  that  in  some 
measure  we  dehumanize  him?  Ought  we  not 
to  concede  to  him  a  natural  sense  of  humor, 
quickened  by  the  rarest  intelligence  and  re- 
fined by  his  divine  spirituality? 

We  are  not  left  to  mere  conjecture  regarding 
the  humor  of  Jesus.  His  recorded  utterances 
are  before  us  bearing  incontrovertible  evidence 
that  his  genial  spirit  found  expression  in 
kindly  pleasantries  and  humorous  suggestions. 
His  colloquy  with  the  Syrophoenician  woman 
(Mark  7)  is  a  good-natured  challenge  of  a 
heathen's  right  to  ask  anything  of  him  until 
he  has  attended  to  all  the  applications  of  his 
own  people.  The  mother's  rejoinder  is  unmis- 
takably witty,  and  is  apparently  very  much 
relished  by  Jesus :  "Yes,  sir ;  but  the  dogs 
under  the  table  eat  of  the  children's  crumbs." 
Back  of  the  woman's  quick  intelligence  our 
Lord  sees  faith  in  his  actual  mission,  and  he 
instantly  responds  to  it  and  grants  her  peti- 
tion. 

Observe    his    quaint    characterizations    of 


120        THE  LITERARY  PRIMACY 

those  who  carefully  cleanse  the  outside  of  the 
cup  and  platter,  forgetting  that  they  drink  and 
feed  from  the  inside  of  these  vessels;  of  men 
who  carefully  strain  out  a  gnat  but  inconti- 
nently swallow  a  camel.  Notice  how  he  hits 
off  the  absurdity  of  trying  to  serve  two  mas- 
ters, of  feeding  pearls  to  swine,  of  putting  a 
light  under  a  bushel,  of  proffering  a  stone  for 
bread,  or  a  serpent  for  a  fish,  or  a  scorpion 
for  an  egg,  of  pitting  Beelzebub  against  him- 
self. What  a  grotesque  thing  it  is  for  a  camel 
to  try  to  squeeze  through  the  eye  of  a  needle, 
or  for  a  blind  man  to  attempt  to  lead  another 
sightless  mortal,  with  the  result  that  both 
pitch  into  the  gutter.  How  preposterous  it  is 
for  a  man  with  a  beam  in  his  eye  to  offer  to 
remove  a  mote  from  his  brother's  eye.  Con- 
sider the  ludicrous  plight  of  the  architect  who 
places  a  house  on  the  shifting  sands,  of  the 
general  who  goes  to  war  without  thinking  it 
worth  while  to  estimate  the  possible  resources 
of  his  enemy,  of  the  man  who  makes  himself 
the  laughing-stock  of  his  town  by  commencing 
to  build  a  tower  which  he  has  no  means  to 
finish.  These  are  delicious  bits  of  our  Lord's 
humor  with  a  high  moral  purpose. 

Think  of  the  quaint  shrewdness  of  admon- 
ishing his  disciples  not  to  think  of  the  morrow, 
because  that  was  characteristic  of  the  Gen- 
tiles, nor  to  depend  on  the  worldly  policy  of 


OF  THE  BIBLE  121 

loving  only  their  friends,  since  that  was  the 
habit  of  the  publicans.  Remember  the  pathetic 
humor  of  his  response  when  the  Pharisees 
warned  him  that  Herod  was  on  his  track :  "Go 
ye,  and  tell  that  fox,  Behold,  I  cast  out  devils, 
and  I  do  cures  to-day  and  to-morrow,  and  the 
third  day  I  shall  be  perfected  .  .  .  for  it  can- 
not be  that  a  prophet  perish  out  of  Jerusa- 
lem." Recall  his  quiet  remark,  probably 
accompanied  by  a  tremulous  smile,  when  his 
disciples  brought  out  two  old  swords  with 
which  to  confront  the  world — "It  is  enough !" 
Run  through  his  parables,  and  observe  how 
rich  a  vein  of  humor  pervades  all  of  the  more 
important  ones.  What  further  need  is  there 
of  illustrations? — though  the  number  of  those 
not  mentioned  here  is  very  considerable.  It  is 
perfectly  evident  that  Hebrew  humor  did  not 
fail  him  of  whom  "Moses  in  the  law,  and  the 
prophets,  did  write." 


122        THE  LITERARY  PRIMACY 


CHAPTEK  IV 

THE  BIBLE  THE  MOST  PERSISTENT  FORCE  IN 

LITERATURE 

NOT  the  least  remarkable  fact  about  the 
Bible  is  the  astonishing  way  in  which  it  has 
survived  the  loss  and  decay  which  are  inci- 
dental or  inevitable  to  literature.  The  mor- 
tality of  books  is  one  of  their  most  striking 
characteristics.  It  used  to  be  said,  and  it 
probably  is  still  true,  if  indeed  the  figures  are 
not  too  restrained,  that  of  every  thousand 
volumes  published  six  hundred  and  fifty  do  not 
see  the  end  of  their  first  year ;  one  hundred  and 
fifty  do  not  last  until  their  third  year;  and 
only  fifty  survive  seven  years.  Of  scientific 
books,  it  is  safe  to  assert  that  the  majority  of 
them  are  obsolete  in  less  than  ten  years.  Theo- 
logical and  philosophical  works  cumber  the 
shelves  of  second-hand  bookstores  a  few  years 
after  they  are  issued.  A  comparatively  small 
number  of  volumes  contain  the  quintessence 
of  all  human  learning.  It  is  high  credit  for 
the  Bible  that,  as  the  centuries  of  its  history 
accumulate,  its  power  upon  the  human  imagi- 
nation increases.  When  the  Revised  Version 


OP  THE  BIBLE  123 

of  the  New  Testament  appeared  in  1881,  so 
great  was  the  demand  for  it  that  large  sums 
of  money  were  offered  for  a  copy  in  advance 
of  its  advertised  date  of  publication.  The 
streets  of  New  York  and  other  cities  were 
blockaded  with  express  wagons  waiting  to 
transport  copies  of  it.  Millions  of  the  volumes 
were  sold  as  fast  as  they  could  be  delivered, 
and  from  the  Gospel  of  Matthew  to  the  Epistle 
to  the  Romans  the  contents  of  that  book  were 
telegraphed  from  New  York  to  Chicago,  in 
order  to  get  them  into  the  newspapers  twenty- 
four  hours  before  the  trains  could  transport 
the  matter.  This  is  an  illustration  of  Ameri- 
can journalistic  enterprise,  but  it  is  also  an 
impressive  demonstration  of  the  deathless  in- 
terest of  humanity  in  this  great  library  of 
ancient  writing  which  some  people  believe  to 
be  obsolete. 

The  antiquity  of  the  Bible  increases  the  sig- 
nificance of  its  popularity.  The  probability 
is  that  some  portions  of  the  Old  Testament 
antedate  all  other  literatures  of  the  world. 
Certainly  the  ethnologists  and  anthropologists 
are  compelled  to  have  recourse  to  this  book 
when  they  are  considering  the  origins  of  hu- 
manity. Some  portions  of  the  Pentateuch 
doubtless  preceded  the  earliest  of  the  Vedas 
by  two  or  three  centuries.  Moses  lived  and 
died  a  thousand  years  before  Confucius  saw 


124        THE  LITERARY  PRIMACY 

the  light.  Abraham  flourished  eight  hundred 
years  before  Zoroaster.  Buddhism  did  not 
begin  to  bloom  till  Abraham  had  left  the  world 
fifteen  centuries.  The  laws  of  Moses  were 
given  seven  hundred  years  before  Lycurgus 
wrote  his,  and  nearly  a  thousand  years  before 
Solon  gave  his  laws  to  Athens. 

Herodotus  has  been  called  the  "Father  of 
History/'  but  Moses  wrote  the  story  of  his 
campaigns  eleven  hundred  years  before  He- 
rodotus lived.  The  lyric  poetry  of  the  Hebrews 
sprang  into  being  a  thousand  years  before 
Horace  wrote  his  Odes.  Deborah  sang  her 
triumphant  song  five  hundred  years  before 
burning  Sappho  stirred  the  thought  of  man. 
Thus  part  by  part  the  literature  of  the  Bible 
surpasses  in  antiquity  that  of  any  volume  in 
existence.  It  has  outlived  its  most  ambitious 
competitors.  Men  used  to  talk  about  banish- 
ing the  Bible  from  the  literature  of  the  world 
— a  futile  boast,  since  the  Bible  has  imbedded 
itself  in  manifold  forms  of  literature,  which 
have  taken  their  inspiration  from  it.  We  are 
told  that  Lord  Hailes  of  Scotland  searched 
the  writings  of  the  Christian  fathers  up  to  the 
end  of  the  third  century,  and  actually  found 
the  whole  of  the  New  Testament,  with  the 
exception  of  less  than  a  dozen  verses,  scattered 
through  their  extant  writing.  "The  grass 
withereth,  and  the  flower  thereof  falleth  away : 


OF  THE  BIBLE  125 

but  the  word  of  the  Lord  endureth  forever" 
(1  Pet.  1.  24,  25). 


The  Bible  has  also  withstood  the  perils  of 
translation,  and  these  are  more  numerous  and 
embarrassing  than  those  would  fancy  who 
have  not  made  an  examination  of  the  case. 
Lord  Bacon  tells  us  somewhere  that  when 
Queen  Elizabeth,  just  before  her  coronation, 
it  being  customary  to  release  prisoners  at  the 
inauguration  of  a  sovereign,  went  to  the  Koyal 
Chapel,  one  of  her  courtiers,  who  was  well 
known  to  her,  presented  her  with  a  petition 
and,  before  a  number  of  court  favorites,  be- 
sought her  with  a  loud  voice  that  there  were 
four  or  five  prisoners  unjustly  detained  in 
prison.  It  was  inquired  who  they  were,  when 
the  petitioner  replied  that  they  were  the  four 
evangelists  and  the  apostle  Paul,  who  had  long 
been  shut  up  in  an  unknown  tongue,  as  it  were, 
in  prison,  so  that  they  could  not  converse  with 
the  common  people.  The  queen  answered  very 
gravely  that  it  was  first  best  to  inquire  of  them 
whether  they  desired  to  be  set  at  liberty  or  not. 
Her  Majesty  probably  had  little  doubt  as  to 
the  answer  which  would  be  returned  from  an 
examination  of  these  extraordinary  captives. 
At  any  rate  we  know  that  the  prisoners  were 
speedily  released,  and  in  an  authorized  ver- 


126        THE  LITERARY  PRIMACY 

sion  of  the  Scriptures  known  as  "The  Bishops' 
Bible,"  they  were  permitted  to  converse  with 
the  common  people  who  were  not  able  to  visit 
them  in  prison.  Now  the  real  story  of  the 
unbinding  of  the  writers  of  the  Bible  from 
chains  of  ancient  and  little  used  languages 
began  much  earlier  than  this  and  reads  like 
a  romance.  Moreover,  it  has  continued  down 
to  our  own  day,  and  is  not  finished  yet,  nor 
will  the  business  of  translation  be  completed 
till  the  Bible  is  made  available  to  every  kin- 
dred and  tribe  and  tongue  on  the  face  of  the 
whole  earth. 

Now  there  are  some  writers  imprisoned  in 
foreign  tongues  whom  it  would  be  unwise  to 
lead  out  of  prison.  Their  characters  are  not 
sufficiently  pure  to  make  their  mingling  with 
society  a  benefit  to  mankind.  Max  Mtiller,  the 
famous  student  of  philology  and  comparative 
religions,  when  editing  and  publishing  a  col- 
lection of  the  Sacred  Books  of  the  East,  was 
constrained  to  suppress  some  parts  of  them 
as  being  too  foul  and  immoral  for  publication. 
One  of  these  productions  is  so  utterly  vicious 
that  it  was  declared  by  the  highest  legal 
authority  of  Bombay  to  be  a  criminal  offense 
to  translate  it  into  any  living  language  of 
India.  This  is  a  very  significant  fact,  the 
meaning  of  which  ought  not  to  be  lost  on  those 
persons  who  profess  to  believe  that  the  reli- 


OF  THE  BIBLE  127 

gious  systems  of  the  Orient  are  sufficient  for 
the  inhabitants  of  those  Eastern  countries. 

But  the  Bible  is  a  book  which  can  be  trans- 
lated into  the  speech  of  any  people  without 
jeopardizing  their  morals.  There  are  over- 
nice  persons  in  the  modern  church  who  would 
like  an  expurgated  edition  of  the  Scriptures 
for  family  use,  and  we  have  had  attempts  at 
recomposition  and  modernization  of  the  Bible 
from  early  days  down  to  the  work  of  Dr.  James 
Moffatt  called  "A  New  Translation  of  the  New 
Testament,"  a  work  which  in  some  parts  is 
almost  a  vulgarization  of  the  Scriptures,  but 
which  in  general  is  an  illuminating  aid  to  their 
interpretation.  Long  ago  a  certain  Dr.  Geddes 
made  a  translation  of  the  Scriptures  with  a 
similar  purpose.  He  translated  the  word 
"Passover"  as  "Skipover,"  and  introduced  con- 
stables among  the  ancient  Israelites.  A  man 
named  Sebastian  Castillon  produced  among 
the  Spaniards  a  classical  version  of  the  Bible, 
into  which  he  introduced  phrases  and  whole 
sentences  from  profane  writers,  but,  as  the 
elder  Disraeli,  from  whom  we  take  these  ex- 
amples, says:  "Of  the  noble  simplicity  of  the 
Scripture  he  seems  not  to  have  had  the  re- 
motest conception."  A  French  writer  named 
Berruyer  wrote  a  paraphrase  of  the  Scriptures 
after  the  style  of  the  fashionable  novel,  telling 
the  stories  of  David  and  Joseph,  for  example, 


128        THE  LITERARY  PRIMACY 

in  the  elaborate  embellishments  of  a  modern 
society  fiction;  and  so  great  a  man  as  Arch- 
bishop Tillotson  prepared  what  was  known  as 
a  Family  Bible,  from  which  had  been  excised 
whatever  might  be  offensive  to  domestic  taste. 
But  however  wise  it  may  be  to  ignore  certain 
unimportant  sections  of  the  Old  Testament 
when  prescribing  what  portions  of  the  Bible 
should  be  read  by  the  young  and  immature,  it 
is  true  as  a  general  statement  that  the  Bible 
contains  nothing  unwholesome,  and  that  in 
translating  it  no  peril  to  the  morals  of  man- 
kind is  incurred.  On  the  other  hand,  the 
whole  intention  and  accomplishment  of  the 
Bible  is  to  denounce  and  destroy  evil. 

But  there  are  perils  in  translating  the  Bible 
which  subject  it  to  the  severest  tests.  In  whole 
or  in  part  it  has  been  translated  into  more  than 
five  hundred  dialects  and  languages.  It  would 
be  natural  to  suppose  that  in  some  of  these 
it  would  lose  its  power,  since  to  suit  itself  to 
many  civilizations  and  conditions  it  must  have 
marvelous  adaptability ;  and  to  speak  through 
such  different  vocabularies  it  must  transcend 
in  its  thought  the  words  employed  to  translate 
it.  It  is  a  dangerous  expedient  to  translate  a 
book  simply  because  in  its  native  tongue  it  is 
impressive.  When  rendered  into  another  lan- 
guage it  may  lose  its  distinctive  charm.  This 
is  indisputably  the  case  with  the  Sacred  Books 


OF  THE  BIBLE  129 

of  the  East.  They  have  been  translated  into 
idiomatically  faultless  English;  yet  they  re- 
pose in  undisturbed  silence  on  the  shelves  of 
the  great  libraries  like  mummies  in  a  museum, 
only  observed  now  and  then  by  the  learned 
antiquary  or  the  curious  searcher  after  Orien- 
tal treasure.  The  Koran  is  a  good  illustration 
of  all  of  them.  Arabic  scholars  declare  that 
in  the  original  it  has  a  certain  rhetorical 
rhythm  which  charms  the  Arab  ear  and  holds 
the  attention  of  the  reader;  but  when  the 
thoughts  are  translated  into  another  language 
they  become  vapid,  insipid,  and  inane.  John 
Ruskin  says :  "I  have  read  three  or  four  pages 
of  the  translation  of  the  Koran  and  never  want 
to  read  more."  Carlyle  calls  it  "insufferably 
stupid."  Gibbon  says:  "Mahomet's  loftiest 
strains  must  yield  to  the  sublime  simplicity  of 
the  book  of  Job,  composed  in  a  remote  age  and 
in  the  same  country."  Yet  it  is  said  we  have 
a  good  English  translation.  But,  according 
to  a  recent  writer,  there  are  not  twenty  men 
living  who  have  read  the  Koran  in  English, 
though  it  could  be  done  in  a  dozen  hours.  In 
its  translated  form  it  appeals  to  no  one.  But 
this  peril  the  Bible  has  endured  and  the  num- 
ber of  its  students  is  constantly  increasing. 

Still  there  are  great  difficulties  in  translat- 
ing it.  With  some  portions  exact  rendering 
is  literally  impossible.  Lucretius,  the  Latin 


130        THE  LITERARY  PRIMACY 

poet,  who  lias  given  us  a  fine  exposition  in 
verse  of  the  Epicurean  philosophy,  complains 
in  the  beginning  of  his  famous  poem  of  the 
difficulty  of  his  task  because  of  the  poverty 
of  the  Latin  language,  and  the  novelty  of  his 
theme.  He  was  compelled  to  invent  a  scientific 
terminology  in  order  to  express  the  ideas  of  the 
philosophy  he  was  enunciating.  Paul  and 
other  New  Testament  writers  experienced  a 
similar  difficulty  in  the  use  of  classic  Greek, 
so  that  it  was  necessary  for  them  to  infuse  new 
meanings  into  old  words,  and  in  some  in- 
stances practically  to  manufacture  words  and 
phrases  adequately  to  express  the  sublime 
ideas  of  the  gospel  of  Christ.  In  the  same 
manner  all  modern  translations  of  the  Chris- 
tian Scriptures  into  heathen  tongues  have  been 
embarrassed.  Examples  of  this  may  be  found 
in  every  tongue.  Moravian  missionaries  in 
New  Guinea,  for  example,  could  do  no  better 
with  the  Lord's  Prayer  than  to  render  the  first 
sentence,  "Our  Father,  thou  sittest  in  heaven," 
and  in  place  of  "Thy  kingdom  come"  were 
forced  to  substitute,  "Come  Thou  Chieftain 
Great."  In  Alaska,  where  there  are  no  sheep 
nor  shepherds,  the  missionary  could  find  no 
better  rendering  of  the  first  sentence  of  the 
twenty-third  psalm  than  to  say,  "The  Lord  is 
a  first  class  mountain  hunter."  In  India  and 
elsewhere  it  has  been  found  necessary  to  manu- 


OP  THE  BIBLE  131 

facture  words  by  a  kind  of  transliteration,  as, 
for  example,  the  word  "kanshans"  for  "con- 
science," and  the  word  "sinipatiaz"  for  "sym- 
pathize." Thus  the  Bible  is  not  inarticulate, 
though  it  is  compelled  to  speak  through  such 
infirm  mediums.  It  utters  itself  even  through 
broken  and  fragmentary  vocabularies,  and  it 
becomes  articulate  in  such  a  fashion  as  to  be 
understood  because  its  thoughts  find  response 
in  the  intuitions  of  the  human  mind  every- 
where and  among  all  kindreds,  peoples,  and 
tongues.  When  you  have  translated  the  books 
of  the  East  into  the  English  tongue  you  have 
not  brought  them  any  nearer  to  the  English 
mind;  but  when  you  translate  the  Bible  into 
the  languages  of  the  Orient,  or  the  restricted 
vocabularies  of  the  Southern  lands,  or  the 
narrow  tongues  of  the  North,  you  bring  these 
people  a  volume  which  they  understand  at 
once.  It  speaks  to  them  of  what  God  has 
already  spoken  to  their  consciences.  To  quote 
a  modern  writer,  "It  has  taken  a  position  out- 
side the  peculiarities  of  any  race  or  clime.  It 
is  not  the  book  of  an  empire  or  of  an  era  or 
of  a  civilization  or  mode  of  culture.  It  is  a 
book  which  has  proved  itself  contemporaneous 
with  all  time,  coextensive  with  all  space,  and 
coexistent  with  all  culture,  and  the  only  ex- 
planation of  the  fact  that  it  has  been  trans- 
lated without  the  loss  of  anything  vital  is  that 


132        THE  LITERARY  PRIMACY 

it  consists  of  God's  thoughts  in  men's  words." 
At  the  beginning  of  the  nineteenth  century  it 
was  said,  "There  are  over  sixty  different  lan- 
guages in  the  world,  and  it  is  absolutely  im- 
possible for  the  Bible  to  find  expression  in  all 
of  them."  Since  then  we  have  learned  that 
there  are  many  times  as  many  languages  as 
was  once  supposed,  and  that  the  Bible  can 
speak  through  all  of  them  without  stammering. 
It  has  also  withstood  the  furious  assaults  of 
its  avowed  enemies.  These  have  divided  them- 
selves into  various  classes  for  different  points 
of  attack,  even  as  an  army  falls  into  brigades 
for  a  like  purpose.  One  division  of  the  foe  has 
sought  the  destruction  of  the  Bible  by  acts 
of  violence  on  the  book  itself,  of  which  class 
Jehoiakim,  the  King  of  Judah,  who  attempted 
to  destroy  a  part  of  prophecy  by  cutting  it 
with  a  knife  and  burning  it  on  the  hearth,  is 
an  illustration.  Another  is  Antiochus  IV,  who 
one  hundred  years  before  Christ  gathered  all 
the  Scriptures  he  could  find  and  obliterated 
them  with  dastardly  vandalism.  Still  another 
is  Diocletian,  the  emperor,  who  in  312  A.  D. 
issued  an  edict  for  the  annihilation  of  the 
Scriptures;  and  still  others  are  the  Roman 
Catholic  authorities,  who  times  without  num- 
ber down  to  the  present  day  have  heaped  the 
sacred  books  into  blazing  piles  in  the  vain 
effort  to  suppress  their  influence. 


OF  THE  BIBLE  133 

Failing  to  drive  the  Bible  itself  into  oblivion, 
the  enemies  of  truth  have  sought  to  silence  the 
champions  of  the  Bible  who  have  preached  its 
doctrines  and  disseminated  its  teaching.  The 
book  is  most  powerful  when  it  has  a  man  of 
religious  sincerity  back  of  it.  Hence  the 
Waldenses  and  the  Albigenses  must  be  hunted 
to  the  death.  John  Huss  must  be  burned  at 
the  stake  and  his  ashes  scattered  on  Lake  Con- 
stance. Jerome  Savonarola  must  be  murdered 
in  the  same  fashion  in  the  Florentine  market- 
place. William  Tyndale  must  be  brutally 
sacrificed  at  Smithfield,  England.  And  hosts 
of  Bible  readers  and  colporteurs  down  to  this 
hour  must  be  mobbed,  imprisoned,  stoned,  and 
killed  in  the  futile  attempt  to  destroy  these 
immortal  books,  for  despite  the  burning  of 
millions  of  copies  and  hundreds  of  translators 
and  disseminators  of  the  Scriptures,  the  irre- 
pressible volume  has  leaped  on  to  wider  popu- 
larity than  is  known  to  any  other  work  of 
genius. 

Since  it  could  not  be  exterminated,  its 
enemies  have  sought  to  invalidate  its  influence 
by  impugning  its  character,  disputing  its 
authenticity,  and  disproving  its  veracity.  Yet 
the  very  stones  have  cried  out  to  proclaim  its 
trustworthiness.  The  spade  of  the  excavator 
has  turned  up  evidences  of  its  reliability  in 
the  ruins  of  buried  cities.  Tablets,  columns, 


134        THE  LITERARY  PRIMACY 

monuments,   and   every   species   of  inscribed 
stone  have  repeatedly  confirmed  its  records. 

Failing  to  destroy  the  historical  character 
of  the  Bible,  its  enemies  have  sought  to  under- 
mine the  influence  it  has  gained  through  the 
religious  system  founded  upon  it.  Wicked 
men,  whose  lives  it  condemns,  have  consist- 
ently assaulted  it,  not  because  they  found  hard 
intellectual  difficulties  in  accepting  it,  but  be- 
cause its  sentences  smote  them  fiercely  in  the 
face  and  they  must  fight  it  or  surrender.  False 
religionists  have  consistently  opposed  it  be- 
cause it  asserts  its  supremacy  over  the  con- 
sciences of  men  and  will  brook  no  rivals.  In- 
fidels have  attacked  it  because  it  rebukes  them 
and  their  lives.  Voltaire  condemned  it  and 
said  that  before  the  beginning  of  the  nine- 
teenth century  Christianity  would  have  van- 
ished, but  Voltaire's  prediction  is  ingloriously 
annulled,  and  Voltaire's  scholarship,  which  in 
the  Bible  was  not  equal  to  that  of  the  average 
boy,  is  discredited  and  his  life  stands  to  ex- 
plain his  antagonism  to  it.  Thomas  Paine 
condemned  it,  but  his  blunders  were  so  great 
that  he  found  it  necessary  to  apologize  for 
them  by  saying  that  when  he  wrote  one  of  his 
treatises  he  had  no  copy  of  the  New  Testament 
with  him;  and  he  died  an  outcast  drunkard, 
leaving  behind  him  a  record  which  showed  why 
he  was  hostile  to  the  Bible.  When  you  learn 


OP  THE  BIBLE  135 

what  kind  of  men  many  of  the  enemies  of 
Christianity  have  been  you  instantly  know  the 
reason  of  their  hostility.  You  also  realize  to 
some  extent  why  their  assaults  have  been  so 
puerile  and  futile.  No  bad  man  can  prevail 
against  a  good  book. 

The  Bible  has  also  withstood  the  abuse  to 
which  it  has  been  subjected  by  its  avowed 
friends,  and  this  has  been  as  severe  a  test  of 
permanency  as  the  ability  to  survive  the  hos- 
tility of  its  open  foes.  The  champions  of  every 
great  reform  have  been  constrained  to  pray 
that  God  would  deliver  them  from  their 
friends,  and  the  defenders  of  the  Bible  might 
ask  with  equal  reverence  that  God  would  save 
the  precious  volume  from  the  ravages  of  its 
friends.  No  book  has  ever  suffered  such  abuse 
from  conscientious  persons.  Puzzled  by  sen- 
tences in  the  Holy  Scripture  which  seemed 
repellent  to  morality  or  contradictory  to  rea- 
son, men  who  were  anxious  for  the  reputation 
of  the  Bible  have  felt  that  the  doctrine  of 
divine  inspiration  could  be  supported  only  by 
attributing  to  the  Scriptures  an  allegorical  or 
inner  meaning.  Philo,  the  Jew,  thus  inter- 
preted the  Holy  Scriptures.  Origen,  one  of 
the  noblest  of  the  Christian  fathers,  followed 
the  same  practice.  The  venerable  Bede,  who 
gave  to  the  world  a  truly  wonderful  transla- 
tion of  the  New  Testament,  indulged  in  similar 


136        THE  LITERARY  PRIMACY 

nonsense.  Swedenborg,  in  modern  times,  car- 
ried the  method  to  the  wildest  extremes.  The 
total  effect  of  these  misguided  efforts  has  been 
to  discredit  the  sacred  Scriptures  in  the  eyes 
of  cool-headed  and  thoughtful  people  and  to 
make  the  Bible  an  occasion  of  ridicule.  No 
one  has  been  more  successful  in  thus  injuring 
the  repute  of  the  Scriptures  than  Mrs.  Eddy, 
with  her  grotesque  paraphrases  and  absurd 
interpretations  of  such  portions  of  Scripture 
as  she  found  useful  for  her  purpose. 

Again  the  friends  of  the  Bible  have  made 
it  ridiculous  by  using  it  to  refute  scien- 
tific theories  which  subsequently  were  tri- 
umphantly established.  The  writers  of  the 
Bible  never  intended  to  be  scientists.  It  is 
wonderful  how  God  has  preserved  them  from 
the  folly  of  placing  themselves  in  antagonism 
to  the  investigations  of  the  ages  following 
their  time.  It  is  as  important  to  be  kept  from 
being  a  fool  as  to  be  inspired  with  the  power 
to  be  brilliant.  Some  well-meaning,  but  wrong- 
headed  individuals  have  always  insisted  on 
making  the  Bible  an  authority  in  physical 
science.  Thus,  on  the  basis  of  the  Scriptures, 
Lactantius  denied  that  the  world  is  round; 
Ambrose  stated  that  the  sky  is  a  solid  vault; 
Augustine  denied  the  antipodes;  Spanish 
priests  argued  the  impossibility  of  Colurnbus's 
scheme;  Calvin  protested  against  the  helio- 


OF  THE  BIBLE  137 

centric  system;  Wesley  disputed  the  Coper- 
nican  system ;  Kepler  was  opposed  by  Calvin ; 
Eoger  Bacon,  Galileo,  Buffon,  Darwin,  and 
numerous  others  were  remorselessly  assailed 
by  the  Church.  Professor  Tyrrell  of  Dublin 
University  declares:  "I  have  myself  seen  an 
old  edition  of  the  Trincipia7  by  a  learned 
Abbe  who  took  care  to  explain  in  his  preface 
that,  though  the  conclusions  of  Newton  con- 
stituted a  good  discipline  for  the  exercise  of 
the  mental  faculties,  and,  therefore,  might  be 
studied  with  profit,  yet  they  must  not  be  re- 
garded as  true,  inasmuch  as  a  bull  of  the  Holy 
Father  had  spoken  of  the  sun  as  revolving 
around  the  earth."  In  much  the  same  fashion 
Protestants,  who  substituted  the  Bible  for  the 
Pope,  have  condemned  the  teachings  of  science 
on  the  ground  that  the  Scriptures  contradicted 
them. 

Reputed  friends  of  the  Bible  have  made  it 
a  scandal  to  the  good  and  the  pure  by  appeal- 
ing to  it  for  authority  for  many  species  of 
wickedness,  especially  for  the  justification  of 
religious  persecution,  proving  the  truth  spoken 
by  one  of  Shakespeare's  characters : 

In  religion, 

What  damned  error,  but  some  sober  brow 
Will  bless  it,  and  approve  it  with  a  text, 
Hiding  the  grossness  with  fair  ornament? 

Romanists  and  Protestants  alike  have  been 


138        THE  LITERARY  PRIMACY 

guilty  of  this  folly.  Witchcraft  was  punished 
by  cruelties  immeasurable  on  the  basis  of 
Scripture  texts.  Crimes  have  been  justified, 
polygamy  defended,  slavery  supported  by  the 
same  process.  As  some  one  has  truthfully 
said,  "Men  betray  the  Bible  with  a  kiss."  The 
words  of  Burns  are  pertinent : 

E'en  ministers,  they  have  been  kenn'd 

In  holy  rapture 
A  rousing  whid  at  times  to  vend, 

And  nail't  wi'  Scripture. 

Not  the  least  of  the  strains  placed  upon  the 
Bible  it  has  suffered  from  zealous  theologians, 
who  have  violently  twisted  its  lines  to  conform 
to  their  theories  and  support  their  doctrines. 
"Men  have  first  formed  a  creed,  and  then  gone 
to  the  Bible  to  seek  its  confirmation,"  says  one, 
"instead  of  going  to  God's  Word  simply  to 
ascertain  what  God  has  said,  and  what  the 
mind  of  the  Spirit  is." 

The  superstitious  uses  to  which  the  Bible 
has  been  subjected  constitute  a  source  of  in- 
jury to  it  which  has  been  operative  from  a 
very  distant  time  until  the  present  hour.  In 
a  recent  book  on  The  Influence  of  the  Bible  on 
Civilization,  Professor  Ernst  von  Dobschtitz 
says  concerning  this  abuse  in  an  earlier  day : 

There  was  the  gospel,  representative  of  Jesus  himself 
in  his  heavenly  power;  superstition  made  it  a  vehicle 
of  its  own  magical  rites.  There  was  the  Bible,  the  book 


OP  THE  BIBLE  139 

of  divine  oracles;  human  inquisitiveness  turned  it  into 
a  book  from  which  to  read  the  dark  future.  The  heathen 
had  done  this  with  the  poems  of  Homer  and  Vergil. 
Turning  over  the  pages  they  suddenly  stopped  at  a 
verse  and  then  tried  to  find  in  this  verse  the  answer 
to  their  question.  The  fathers  of  the  early  church 
detested  this  method  as  something  quite  alien  to  the 
Christian  mind,  but  as  early  as  the  end  of  the  fourth 
century  people  came  to  feel  that  it  was  all  right  if  they 
only  used  the  Bible  for  the  same  purpose.  In  the  sixth 
century  even  church  officials  kept  to  this  practice.  When 
a  bishop  had  to  be  elected  they  almost  always  consulted 
the  Psalter  first  on  behalf  of  the  man  to  be  elected. 
Bible  verses  written  on  parchment  were  attached  to  easy 
chairs  in  order  to  keep  away  the  evil  spirits.  ...  A 
rolled  sheet  of  lead,  inscribed  with  a  psalm  and  a  dread- 
ful curse  against  any  robber,  has  been  found  on  one 
of  the  ^gean  Islands  hidden  in  the  ground  of  a  vine- 
yard. Evidently  the  psalm  was  supposed  to  be  one  of 
the  most  effective  spells.  Even  the  Lord's  Prayer  and 
other  parts  of  the  Gospels  have  been  abused  in  the  same 
way. 

It  is  a  remarkable  book  which,  in  the  first 
place,  acquires  a  reputation  for  transcendent 
powers  sufficient  to  incite  such  superstitious 
veneration,  and  which,  in  the  second  place,  is 
so  full  of  dignity  and  force  that  it  can  with- 
stand the  influences  which  seek  everlastingly 
to  degrade  it. 

II 

From  this  negative  demonstration  of  the 
vitality  of  the  Bible  we  may  now  profitably 
turn  to  the  positive  and  constructive  influence 


140        THE  LITERARY  PRIMACY 

it  has  exerted  on  civilization.  We  shall  find 
that  it  has  been  a  perpetual  liberator  of  man- 
kind from  ecclesiastical,  political,  and  social 
bondage ;  that  what  it  has  achieved  among  the 
nations  which  have  experienced  the  benefits  of 
its  influence  gives  promise  that  ultimately  it 
will  effect  all  those  adjustments  by  which 
society  is  to  conform  to  the  highest  ideals  of 
justice. 

In  the  earliest  Christian  centuries  the  Bible 
occupied  a  unique  place  in  the  esteem  of  those 
who  counted  themselves  the  disciples  of  Jesus, 
and  who  in  three  hundred  years  brought  their 
religion  to  a  commanding  position  in  the  Ro- 
man empire.  While  Christianity  was,  as  now, 
primarily  devotion  to  Christ,  the  Bible  became 
the  supreme  manual  by  which  the  life  of  the 
Christian  was  guided,  as  well  as  the  means  by 
which  the  principles  of  the  Christian  religion 
were  inculcated.  In  the  beginning  it  con- 
sisted of  the  Old  Testament  alone,  but  the 
ancient  collection  was  so  interpreted  as  to 
make  all  its  lines  converge  upon  Christ,  as  he 
had  himself  taught  his  immediate  disciples  to 
believe.  As  the  written  memorials  of  Jesus 
began  to  circulate  a  generation  after  his  cruci- 
fixion, and  the  letters  of  the  apostles  to 
churches  and  individuals  gained  currency,  a 
New  Testament  was  gradually  formed  and 
added  to  the  sacred  writings  of  the  Hebrews. 


OF  THE  BIBLE  141 

This  double  collection  of  books  then  became 
the  ruling  agency  in  the  development  of  the 
church. 

Persecution  was  unable  to  stay  the  multipli- 
cation of  manuscripts  of  the  Bible  or  to 
quench  the  devotion  of  the  Christians  to  their 
venerable  Scriptures.  When  at  length  a  Chris- 
tian emperor  came  to  the  throne  of  the  Caesars, 
he  ordered  fifty  fine  copies  of  the  Bible  to  be 
prepared  for  the  churches  of  Constantinople, 
the  recently  founded  capital  of  his  realm,  at 
his  own  expense.  From  that  hour  copies  of 
the  Scriptures  increased  with  great  rapidity, 
and  the  influence  of  the  Bible  in  the  national 
life  advanced  with  equal  pace.  A  copy  of  the 
sacred  volume  lay  upon  the  presidential  chair 
at  each  great  church  council.  It  was  present 
in  every  court  room,  being  used  in  taking  an 
oath.  The  Scriptures  began  to  influence  legis- 
lation from  the  days  of  Constantine.  Jus- 
tinian supplemented  the  old  Roman  law,  which 
he  codified,  with  laws  of  his  own,  in  which  he 
sometimes  referred  to  the  Bible  for  his  au- 
thority. Lawyers  in  this  period  made  com- 
parisons between  the  legal  enactments  of 
Rome  and  the  law  of  Moses.  The  contact  of 
Rome  with  surrounding  nations  brought  the 
Bible  to  the  barbarous  tribes.  Continental 
Europe  was  illumined  by  the  Scriptures;  and 
when  Augustine  entered  Britain,  it  was  to 


142        THE  LITERARY  PRIMACY 

place  the  Bible  before  the  Anglo-Saxons. 
Charlemagne  regulated  his  public  and  private 
conduct  by  the  Scriptures. 

What  power  the  Bible  exerted  in  the  affairs 
of  men  in  those  centuries,  despite  the  difficulty 
of  circulating  it,  may  readily  be  understood 
when  we  reflect  that,  once  the  Canon  of  Scrip- 
ture had  received  general  acceptance,  the 
theory  of  the  equal  authority  of  all  its  parts 
became  dominant,  and  the  Scriptures  were 
conceived  as  a  reservoir  of  advices  suitable  for 
every  condition  of  life  and  sufficient  for  every 
problem  which  might  present  itself;  or  as  an 
arsenal  from  which  weapons  might  be  drawn 
to  meet  the  antagonism  of  every  enemy  of  the 
truth.  This  view  of  the  Bible  persists  in  our 
time,  but  has  no  such  sovereignty  as  it  main- 
tained then,  when  the  church  had  not  yet 
asserted  itself  to  be  an  authority  above  the 
Bible — the  supreme  custodian  and  interpreter 
of  revelation. 

In  the  mediaeval  period  of  European  civili- 
zation the  influence  of  the  Bible  upon  popular 
thought  and  action  was  first  obscured  and 
finally  almost  extinguished,  because  its  pre- 
cepts were  no  longer  brought  into  immediate 
contact  with  the  common  mind.  Scarcely  any- 
one but  the  clergy  could  read.  They  did  not 
take  the  Bible  away  from  the  laity  so  much 
as  it  was  ignored  by  the  latter.  Being  depend- 


OF  THE  BIBLE  143 

ent  on  the  priests  for  both  the  knowledge  of 
its  contents  and  an  explanation  of  their  mean- 
ing, they  were  easily  ruled  by  the  hierarchy, 
and  those  desolate  decades  of  ecclesiastical 
tyranny  which  are  the  shame  of  Christendom 
naturally  ensued. 

After  the  gloomy  night  of  the  middle  cen- 
turies had  passed  away,  a  revival  of  learning 
having  brought  scholars  to  the  study  of  the 
Hebrew  and  Greek  Scriptures,  the  Bible,  which 
had  been  so  great  a  power  in  training  the  early 
church,  came  to  be  the  force  which  upheaved 
ecclesiastical  traditions  and  institutions,  and 
created  grave  alarm  among  the  priestly 
authorities  of  the  Church.  It  would  be  most 
profitable  to  survey  the  reforms  which  swept 
over  Europe  in  consequence  of  the  rediscovery 
of  the  Bible,  but  names  must  stand  to  us  for 
epochal  movements.  Peter  Waldo  and  his 
poor  men  of  Lyons,  the  Albigenses,  Wiclif, 
Huss,  Tyndale,  Luther,  Calvin,  Erasmus, 
Zwingli,  Melanchthon,  Knox,  and  others — 
figures  which  represent  the  whole  stream  of 
influences  which  culminated  in  the  spiritual 
and  churchly  reformation  of  the  sixteenth  cen- 
tury— sprang  into  the  arena  with  the  Bible  in 
their  hands. 

That  the  church  would  resist  this  movement 
was  inevitable.  Its  hostility  extended  all  the 
way  from  ignorant  assaults  upon  the  Scrip- 


144        THE  LITERARY  PRIMACY 

tures  themselves  to  brutal  persecutions  of 
those  who  sought  the  religious  freedom  offered 
to  them  in  the  Bible.  A  French  priest  said 
from  his  pulpit  in  1530 : 

They  have  found  out  a  new  language,  called  Greek. 
We  must  carefully  guard  ourselves  against  that  language. 
It  will  be  the  mother  of  all  sorts  of  heresies.  I  see  in 
the  hands  of  many  people  a  book  in  that  tongue  called 
the  New  Testament.  It  is  a  book  full  of  brambles,  with 
vipers  in  them. 

But  even  the  fires  of  Smithfield,  the  whole- 
sale murders  in  the  Netherlands,  the  frightful 
massacres  in  France,  the  martyrdoms  multi- 
plied in  every  corner  of  Europe,  could  not 
paralyze  the  energies  which  were  inspired  by 
the  Bible.  Religious  freedom  was  procured  at 
an  enormous  cost,  A  spiritually  decadent 
church,  compelled  to  adjust  herself  to  new  and 
perilous  conditions,  instituted  reforms  within 
her  borders,  and  a  new  beginning  was  made  in 
the  religious  life  of  the  world,  which  has  been 
maintained  with  increasing  vigor  down  to  the 
present  time. 

It  is  not  too  much  to  affirm  that  in  every 
land  where  the  Bible  has  been  permitted  free 
access  to  the  people  national  life  has  been  puri- 
fied and  enriched.  It  is  no  mere  accident  that 
countries  in  which  the  Scriptures  have  been 
given  a  dominant  influence  are  the  supreme 
nations  of  the  world.  To  go  no  farther  afield 


OF  THE  BIBLE  145 

than  England — and  limitations  of  space 
enforce  the  requirement  of  restricted  illustra- 
tion— we  find  an  example  which  is  a  type  of 
many  others.  Whether  John  Wiclif  realized 
that  the  Bible  is  by  its  very  nature  inevitably 
an  ecclesiastical  and  political  emancipator, 
when  he  began  his  translation  of  the  Scrip- 
tures into  the  English  vernacular,  one  cannot 
tell.  But  that  is  precisely  what  this  "morning 
star  of  the  Keforrnation"  proved  by  his  mag- 
nificent work,  as  did  also  those  noble  succes- 
sors of  his  who  brought  it  down  to  later 
generations  through  their  skillful  rendering  of 
the  Bible  into  popular  speech. 

That  fine  historian  of  the  English  people, 
J.  H.  Green,  says  of  the  influence  of  the  Bible 
in  England: 

But  far  greater  than  its  effect  on  literature  or  social 
phrase  was  the  effect  of  the  Bible  on  the  character  of 
the  people  at  large.  Elizabeth  might  silence  or  tune  the 
pulpits;  but  it  was  impossible  for  her  to  silence  or  tune 
the  great  preachers  of  justice  and  mercy  and  truth  who 
spoke  from  the  book  which  she  had  again  opened  for  her 
people.  The  whole  moral  effect  which  is  produced  now- 
adays by  the  religious  newspaper,  the  tract,  the  essay, 
the  lecture,  the  missionary  report,  the  sermon,  was  then 
produced  by  the  Bible  alone.  And  its  effect  in  this  way, 
however  dispassionately  we  examine  it,  was  simply 
amazing.  The  whole  temper  of  the  nation  was  changed. 
A  new  conception  of  life  and  of  man  superseded  the  old. 
A  new  moral  and  religious  impulse  spread  through  every 
class.  Literature  reflected  the  general  tendency  of  the 
time;  and  the  dumpy  little  quartos  of  controversy  and 


146        THE  LITERARY  PRIMACY 

piety,  which  still  crowd  our  older  libraries,  drove  before 
them  the  classical  translations  and  Italian  novelettes 
of  the  age  of  Elizabeth. 

It  is  significant  of  all,  in  this  respect,  that 
occurred  in  the  civilization  of  Great  Britain, 
that  when  in  the  early  days  King  Alfred  col- 
lected the  laws  of  his  people,  he  placed  the 
Ten  Commandments  at  the  beginning.  Black- 
stone  said  in  his  commentaries  that  the  Bible 
had  always  been  regarded  as  a  part  of  the  com- 
mon law  of  England.  Queen  Victoria  told  a 
pagan  ambassador,  as  she  handed  him  a  copy 
of  the  Bible,  "That  is  the  secret  of  the  great- 
ness of  England."  "All  that  we  call  modern 
civilization,"  says  Froude,  "in  a  sense  which 
deserves  the  name,  is  the  visible  expression 
of  the  transforming  power  of  the  gospel." 

In  our  own  country  the  story  is  the  same. 
The  influence  of  the  Bible  on  the  public  life 
of  the  Puritans  in  New  England  was  com- 
manding. In  June,  1639,  "all  the  free  plant- 
ers" of  the  colony  of  New  Haven  "assembled 
together  in  a  general  meeting  to  consult  about 
settling  civil  government  according  to  God." 
After  much  deliberation  and  careful  thought 
it  was  unanimously  voted  "that  the  word  of 
God  shall  be  the  only  rule  to  be  attended  unto 
in  ordering  the  government  in  this  planta- 
tion." This  resolution  was  observed  for  a  long- 
time, with  such  variations  from  the  strict 


OF  THE  BIBLE  147 

letter  as  would  occasionally  be  demanded  by 
erring  human  nature.  The  Massachusetts  Bay 
Company  were  bound  by  their  charter  "to  act 
according  to  the  laws  of  God  and  for  the 
advancement  of  his  gospel,  the  laws  of  this 
land,  and  the  good  of  this  plantation,"  and  in 
the  laws  which  the  colonies  framed  for  them- 
selves they  constantly  appealed  to  the  Scrip- 
tures. Despite  the  ridicule  which  has  been 
heaped  upon  these  worthies  and  their  succes- 
sors for  the  austerity  of  their  public  and 
private  conduct,  and  the  severity  of  the  regula- 
tions they  adopted  for  the  guidance  of  civic 
affairs,  it  is  known  to  all  students  of  New 
England  history  that  the  moral  and  religious 
trend  they  imparted  to  the  national  life  of  this 
country  had  much  to  do  with  the  subsequent 
virility  of  its  people.  Our  colonial  period,  as 
it  emerged  into  the  stormy  days  of  the  Revolu- 
tion, was  unquestionably  corrupted  by  the 
malign  influences  of  French  infidelity  and 
English  deism,  but  the  revival  of  religion 
which  swept  over  our  territory,  and  which  left 
neither  colleges  nor  wilderness  cabins  un- 
touched by  its  invigorating  breath,  turned  our 
people  back  to  the  Bible  and  the  sanctifying 
power  of  the  morality  and  spirituality  which 
it  inculcates. 

Many  of  our  leaders  and  publicists  through 
the  succeeding  years  have  not  hesitated  to 


148        THE  LITERARY  PRIMACY 

declare  in  unequivocal  terms  that  the  per- 
petuity of  our  American  institutions  is  depend- 
ent upon  the  practical  veneration  we  give  to 
the  Bible.  During  his  last  illness  Andrew 
Jackson,  pointing  to  the  family  Bible,  said, 
"That  book,  sir,  is  the  rock  on  which  the 
republic  rests."  Not  less  striking  is  the  tribute 
of  Daniel  Webster :  "If  we  abide  by  the  prin- 
ciples taught  in  the  Bible,  our  country  will  go 
on  prospering  and  to  prosper;  but  if  we  and 
our  posterity  neglect  its  instructions  and 
authority,  no  man  can  tell  how  sudden  a  catas- 
trophe may  overwhelm  and  bury  our  glory 
in  profound  obscurity."  In  the  Centennial 
Letter  which  President  Grant  addressed  to  the 
American  Sunday  schools  he  said : 

Hold  fast  to  the  Bible  as  the  sheet  anchor  to  your 
liberties;  write  its  precepts  in  your  hearts,  and  practice 
them  in  your  lives.  To  the  influence  of  this  book  we 
are  indebted  for  all  progress  made  in  our  true  civiliza- 
tion, and  to  this  we  must  look  as  our  guide  in  the  future. 

After  the  battle  of  Manila  and  the  extraor- 
dinary defeat  of  the  Spanish  fleet  at  Santi- 
ago, the  editor  of  an  influential  newspaper 
in  Buenos  Aires  declared  in  his  columns  that 
the  success  of  the  United  States  in  these  and 
other  conflicts  was  due  to  the  fact  that  it  was 
a  Protestant  nation  and  that  its  people  were 
nourished  on  the  Bible. 

It  was  no  sentimental  and  passing  impres- 


OF  THE  BIBLE  149 

sion  that  led  Garibaldi  to  say,  "The  Bible  is 
the  cannon  that  will  make  Italy  truly  free." 
The  rugged  democracy  of  the  English  people 
is  to  be  referred  to  the  potent  sway  of  the  Bible 
over  their  writers  and  speakers  for  a  thousand 
years.  For  it  was  not  Cromwell  alone,  and  the 
Puritan  hosts  which  surrounded  him,  who 
derived  from  the  Bible  their  inspiration  to 
fight  for  constitutional  liberty;  but  virtually 
every  leader  of  the  people's  causes  in  all 
civilized  lands,  who  has  left  an  abiding  mark 
upon  succeeding  generations,  has  found  his 
instigation  and  sustenance  in  the  same  source. 
The  pressure  of  the  Bible  upon  the  social 
conscience  of  mankind  is  but  another  phase 
of  its  influence  on  the  political  destinies  of 
nations.  Lord  Morley  declares  that  Gladstone 
went  no  farther  for  his  social  doctrines  "than 
the  Sermon  on  the  Mount,  where  so  many 
secret  elements  of  social  volcano  slumber." 
He  had  no  need  to  search  elsewhere.  It  is  in 
the  Scriptures  that  revolutions  for  the  sake 
of  ameliorating  human  conditions  are  most 
prolifically  bred.  Tyranny  has  no  more  ex- 
plosive book  to  dread,  and  wherever  its  pages 
are  read  and  its  teachings  followed  despotisms 
and  social  iniquities  are  doomed  to  destruc- 
tion. Wendell  Phillips  said:  "The  answer  to 
the  Shastras  is  India ;  the  answer  to  Confucian- 
ism is  China ;  the  answer  to  the  Koran  is  Tur- 


150        THE  LITERARY  PRIMACY 

key;  the  answer  to  the  Bible  is  the  Chris- 
tian civilization  of  Protestant  Europe  and 
America."  There  is  not  so  much  as  a  hint  of 
any  social  question  in  the  far  East  until  the 
Bible  comes  to  disturb  the  hideous  caste 
systems  of  the  Orient.  Injustice  is  secure 
everywhere  till  the  righteousness  of  the  gospel 
draws  its  flaming  sword.  Oppression  and  in- 
humanity are  driven  out  only  when  the  Bible 
is  given  its  supremacy  over  the  consciences  of 
men. 

Think  of  the  barbarities  which  flourished  in 
England,  despite  the  fact  that  she  was  nomi- 
nally Christian,  before  the  Bible,  through  the 
wide  distribution  afforded  it  by  societies  or- 
ganized for  the  purpose,  had  made  them  impos- 
sible. Lawbreakers  were  under  the  ban  of  a 
penal  code  which  now  seems  incredibly  sense- 
less and  cruel.  Says  William  Canton,  in  a 
recent  volume  on  The  Bible  and  the  Anglo- 
Saxon  People : 

It  was  death  for  sacrilege,  forgery,  letter-stealing; 
death  for  horse,  sheep,  and  cattle  lifting;  death  for 
house-breaking  and  pocket-picking;  death  for  poaching 
and  destroying  young  trees;  death  for  blackmailing  or 
appearing  disguised  on  a  public  way;  the  law  recognized 
two  hundred  and  twenty-three  capital  offenses. 


"The  horrors  of  Newgate  when  Elizabeth 
Fry  visited  it  with  the  Bible"  are  thus  de- 
scribed : 


OP  THE  BIBLE  151 

It  was  a  very  caravansary  of  iniquity  and  despair. 
There  were  men  in  hundreds,  women  in  hundreds, 
women  with  numerous  children.  Unemployed,  uncared 
for,  herded  together  like  brutes,  they  passed  the  time  in 
gambling,  drinking,  fighting,  masquerading,  singing  lewd 
songs,  telling  tales  of  vice  and  villainy,  planning  fresh 
crimes.  Among  the  prisoners  there  were  boys  and  girls 
from  nine  to  thirteen  years  of  age,  growing  up  for  the 
gallows — though  there  was  little  need  to  grow,  for  a 
child  of  ten  was  not  too  young  for  the  hangman. 

How  from  these  frightful  abuses  public 
sentiment  gradually  demanded  relief,  how, 
through  the  labors  of  such  lovers  of  the  Bible 
as  Granville  Sharp,  William  Wilberforce,  and 
their  friends,  slavery  was  abolished  in  the 
British  dominions,  how  eventually  the  condi- 
tions of  manual  toil  for  men,  women,  and  chil- 
dren, which  were  as  intolerable  in  their  way 
as  the  lives  of  prisoners,  were  made  more 
humane — these  are  reforms  known  to  all  the 
world,  and  they  were  achieved  through  the 
energy  which  the  Bible  put  into  the  souls  of 
philanthropists. 

When  Nicholas  I  was  emperor  of  Russia 
there  were  millions  of  serfs  in  his  domain. 
His  son  Alexander  expressed  profound  sorrow 
for  them.  When  he  was  asked  the  reason  for 
his  compassion,  he  replied  that  he  derived 
his  sympathy  "from  reading  the  Bible  which 
teaches  that  we  are  all  brethren."  When  at 
length  he  became  Czar  he  gave  the  serfs  their 


152        THE  LITEKARY  PRIMACY 

freedom,  to  the  astonishment  of  the  world. 
Abraham  Lincoln  was  one  of  the  most  diligent 
readers  of  the  Bible  in  modern  times.  His 
mind  and  heart  were  literally  full  of  the  Scrip- 
tures. He  was  ruled  by  them  in  thought,  word, 
and  deed.  His  hatred  for  human  slavery  was 
not  merely  the  result  of  a  nature  singularly 
humane,  but  also  of  his  veneration  for  a  book 
which  taught  him  the  iniquity  of  regarding 
any  man,  however  degraded,  as  rightfully  the 
chattel  of  another,  however  strong  and  wise. 
It  needs  but  a  superficial  acquaintance  with 
reforms  in  the  past  hundred  years  to  induce 
one  to  agree  with  William  Lloyd  Garrison, 
"Take  away  the  Bible  from  us,  and  our  war- 
fare against  intemperance,  and  impurity,  and 
oppression,  and  infidelity,  and  crime  is  at  an 
end.  We  have  no  authority  to  speak,  no  cour- 
age to  act." 


OP  THE  BIBLE  153 


CHAPTER  V 

THE  BIBLE  AS  ETHICAL  AND  SPIRITUAL 

LITERATURE 

REPUTATIONS  are  sometimes  ruined  by 
assigning  to  men  motives  of  which  they  have 
never  dreamed.  Religion  may  be  libeled  in  the 
same  way.  When  Ingersoll  the  agnostic  went 
up  and  down  the  United  States  making  flip- 
pant people  shriek  with  laughter  at  his  paltry 
witticisms  over  what  he  alleged  to  be  Chris- 
tianity, he  was  really  pounding  a  theology  that 
had  been  dead  for  at  least  fifty  years,  though 
his  auditors  were  not  aware  of  the  deception 
that  was  being  practiced  on  them,  never  hav- 
ing given  ten  minutes  of  serious  investigation 
to  the  problems  of  religion,  or  to  the  develop- 
ment of  the  greatest  of  the  sciences.  The 
attacks  made  on  the  Bible,  in  so  far  as  they 
seek  to  discredit  its  actual  worth,  are  chiefly 
and  ignorantly  directed  against  a  Bible  that 
never  had  any  existence  outside  the  misconcep- 
tions of  uncritical  persons.  For  a  great  pro- 
portion of  this  fanciful  misinterpretation  of 
the  significance  and  claims  of  the  Bible  its 
own  avowed  friends  are  responsible,  as  has 
already  been  explained.  A  further  illustration 


154        THE  LITERARY  PRIMACY 

of  this  fatuity  will  fittingly  introduce  us  to  an 
assessment  of  the  true  values  of  the  Bible  as 
literature  with  a  moral  and  spiritual  function. 


We  are  told  that  Alexander  the  Great  placed 
under  his  pillow  at  night  a  copy  of  Homer's 
Iliad  and  the  sword  with  which  he  carved  his 
way  toward  universal  empire.  Though  we 
may  properly  regard  the  Bible  as,  in  a  true 
sense,  both  intellectual  stimulus  and  militant 
weapon,  yet  a  superstitious  veneration  for  the 
physical  entity  which  embodies  its  sacred 
literature  is  absurd  and  belittling.  Some 
people  pack  copies  of  the  Bible  away  in  their 
traveling  bags  when  they  begin  a  journey,  as 
women  place  sachet  packets  among  their  cloth- 
ing, or  as  pagans  hide  talismans  and  charms 
on  their  persons  to  keep  away  evil  powers. 
They  have  seen  the  Bible  kissed  by  witnesses 
in  court  as  a  solemn  pledge  of  veracity.  They 
know  that  it  is  believed  to  have  a  sanctity 
which  is  supposed  to  attach  to  no  other  book. 
Though  they  do  not  intend  to  manage  their 
lives  by  an  undeviating  fidelity  to  its  precepts 
which  they  seldom  read,  yet  they  would  on  no 
account  be  at  any  time  without  a  copy  of  the 
Scriptures  as  a  protection  against  peril  and 
plague. 


OF  THE  BIBLE  155 

On  a  little  higher  range,  but  one  that  is 
almost  as  injurious  to  the  character  of  the 
Bible,  are  those  persons  who  consider  it  the 
ultimate  authority  on  every  subject,  no  matter 
how  remotely  or  meaninglessly  it  may  ap- 
proach such  a  question.  They  are  determined 
to  press  this  doctrine  to  the  utmost.  The  result 
is  that,  whenever  a  clash  comes  between  a 
biblical  writer  who  was  working  from  the 
standpoint  of  the  knowledge  of  his  day  and  a 
scientific  investigator  who  has  all  the  advan- 
tage of  modern  familiarity  with  the  universe, 
such  misguided  individuals  are  compelled 
either  to  stultify  themselves  by  denying  the 
evidence  of  their  senses,  or  to  surrender  their 
faith  in  the  validity  of  the  Scriptures.  They 
are  like  the  Caliph  Omar,  who,  when  he  had 
captured  Alexandria,  and  was  shown  its  mag- 
nificent library,  asked,  "What  is  the  good  of 
all  these  books?  They  are  either  in  accord 
with  the  Koran,  or  they  are  contrary  to  it. 
If  the  former,  they  are  superfluous,  if  the  latter 
they  are  pernicious.  In  either  case  let  them 
be  burned."  So  perished  many  priceless  prod- 
ucts of  human  genius.  A  like  attitude  is  taken 
toward  all  literature,  of  whatever  sort,  when 
compared  with  the  Bible,  by  those  who  are 
convinced  that  it  is  the  final  word  on  every 
matter.  If  there  be  discovered  any  supposed 
wisdom  that  seems  to  impair  the  credit  of  the 


156        THE  LITERARY  PRIMACY 

Scriptures  in  the  most  obscure  corner  of  the 
least  important  book,  let  it  be  anathema.  Such 
persons  need  the  admonition  of  James  Russell 
Lowell :  "Theology  will  find  out  in  good  time 
that  there  is  no  atheism  at  once  so  stupid 
and  so  harmful  as  the  fancying  God  to  be 
afraid  of  any  knowledge  with  which  he  has 
enabled  man  to  equip  himself."  It  is  no  less 
degrading  to  man's  intellect  and  conscience 
to  assume  that  literature,  however  sacred, 
which  contravenes  the  actual  and  certified  dis- 
coveries of  research  must  be  made  to  invali- 
date those  findings  in  order  to  hold  its  primacy 
as  a  moral  and  spiritual  force. 

Another  misconception,  which  is  more 
plausible,  but  hardly  less  injurious,  if  carried 
to  its  logical  conclusion,  is  that  of  supposing 
the  Bible  to  be  the  source  rather  than  the 
result  of  religion.  The  Old  Testament  did  not 
produce  Judaism,  and  the  New  Testament  did 
not  produce  Christianity.  The  actual  process 
was  just  the  reverse.  Religion  made  both  these 
collections  of  books;  they  did  not  make  reli- 
gion. The  Hebrew  religion  existed  before  the 
Hebrew  Scriptures,  and  the  Christian  religion 
existed  before  the  Christian  Scriptures.  If  all 
the  New  Testaments  now  in  existence  were 
swept  off  the  face  of  the  earth,  the  Christian 
religion  would  still  remain,  and  would  doubt- 
less produce  another  New  Testament,  as  in  a 


OF  THE  BIBLE  157 

broad  sense  it  is  actually  doing  now  in  the 
records  of  its  evangelizing  triumphs. 

We  shall  never  get  the  right  clue  to  this 
wonderful  literature  until  we  perceive  that  the 
Bible  is  a  book  of  life,  a  record  of  moral  and 
spiritual  development,  a  variegated  transcript 
of  human  experience,  the  dominant  tone  of 
which  is  religion.  "The  Bible,"  says  Joseph 
S.  Auerbach,  "rightly  understood,  is  the  story 
of  the  fashioning  of  men  from  feeble  begin- 
nings to  great  issues;  the  toughening  of  the 
fiber  of  character,  and  the  emancipation, 
through  suffering  and  humiliation  and  defeat 
and  captivity  and  exile,  from  the*  bondage  of 
idolatry  and  littleness  to  moral  triumph  and 
spiritual  excellence." 

The  Bible  presents  an  intelligible  exhibit  of 
what  happened  in  the  evolution  of  a  religion 
whose  advocates  predict  that  it  will  one  day 
control  the  w^orld.  They  believe  that  it  is  the 
substance  of  a  revelation  to  men  of  the  ulti- 
mate means  of  redeeming  human  society.  In 
what  has  occurred,  as  the  report  of  it  trans- 
mitted by  the  Scriptures  shows,  there  was  a 
continuous  manifestation  of  divine  influence. 
But  the  supernaturalisin  which  is  accredited 
to  the  Bible  must  by  no  means  be  permitted  to 
efface  the  impression  of  naturalism  very 
apparent  in  its  writings. 

These  considerations  should  save  us  from 


158        THE  LITERARY  PRIMACY 

being  scandalized  by  those  occasional  diverg- 
ences from  the  highest  ethical  standards  which 
are  met  in  the  Bible.  We  early  find  that  its 
morality  is  not  uniform.  That  is  precisely 
what  we  ought  to  expect,  if  we  have  received 
this  literature  for  just  what  it  is,  the  bodying 
forth  in  written  form  of  that  slow  but  steady 
development  of  the  moral  sense  of  mankind 
under  divine  tutelage,  and  not  a  ready-made 
counsel  of  perfection  without  a  flaw  or  a 
blemish.  Incalculable  harm  has  been  done  to 
the  Bible  by  its  professed  friends  trying  to 
explain  every  act  of  "the  chosen  people"  which 
they  ascribed  to  divine  command  as  necessarily 
in  harmony  with  the  divine  will.  This  is  to 
forget  that  the  persons  who  wrote  were  men 
of  like  passions  with  ourselves,  and  that  they 
were  as  likely  to  attempt  to  prejudice  future 
generations  in  their  favor  by  laying  the  re- 
sponsibility of  their  unworthy  deeds  on  God 
as  the  monarchs  of  Europe  are  at  this  moment 
claiming  divine  approval  for  their  unspeakably 
foolish  and  wicked  war.  Whittier's  reverent 
analysis  is  pertinent : 

But  nothing  can  be  good  in  Him 
That  evil  is  in  me. 

God's  character  has  not  changed  in  the 
course  of  the  centuries.  He  is  no  holier  now 
than  he  was  three  thousand  years  ago.  Nor 
lias  he  any  time  fallen  from  those  sublime 


OF  THE  BIBLE  159 

heights  of  excellence  described  by  Jesus.  We 
are,  therefore,  left  to  the  conviction  that  when 
in  certain  historical  portions  of  the  Old  Testa- 
ment, Jehovah  is  represented  as  ordering 
actions  which  in  our  day  would  be  under  the 
ban  of  Christian  sentiment,  the  narrators  have 
spoken  without  divine  warrant.  Wholesale 
murder  in  the  interest  of  a  tribe  claiming 
special  divine  favor  cannot  be  justified  by  such 
a  violent  attack  upon  God's  character  under 
the  plea  that  his  providences  are  inscrutable. 

We  are  well  aware  how  confidently  men  of 
infirm  moral  sense  resort  to  the  Scriptures  for 
the  encouragement  of  their  wicked  designs. 
Not  only  do  they  seek  justification  there  for 
their  personal  ambitions,  as  Napoleon  Bona- 
parte read  the  books  of  Samuel  and  the  Kings 
to  ascertain  what  warrant  they  gave  for 
monarchy,  but  they  proceed  to  buttress  every 
sort  of  villainy  in  the  same  fashion,  the  mean- 
est crimes  of  history  having  been  palliated  by 
this  method.  If  we  should  tarry  in  the  Old 
Testament,  or  if  we  should  give  the  same  value 
to  the  documents  of  the  Old  Testament  that 
we  ascribe  to  the  Gospels,  preferring  the  teach- 
ings of  those  who  affirm  that  the  divine 
sanction  was  given  to  acts  of  rapine  and 
plunder  to  the  dual  law  of  love  to  God  and 
man,  so  clearly  enunciated  and  illustrated  by 
Jesus,  we  should  surely  be  lost  in  uncertain 


160        THE  LITERARY  PRIMACY 

shadows.  But  the  morality  of  the  Bible  is  to 
be  measured  in  all  its  parts  by  the  ethical 
teachings  of  Jesus  and  his  apostles,  and  by 
that  inner  sense  of  right  which,  first  implanted 
by  our  Creator,  and  then  developed  into  acute- 
ness  by  Christian  culture,  has  qualified  us  to 
make  such  discriminations  as  men  of  old  seem 
not  to  have  had  the  ability  to  make.  Security 
for  moral  judgment  may  be  found  by  bringing 
all  the  ethical  precepts  of  ancient  writings  up 
to  the  test  of  such  noble  discourses  as  the  Ser- 
mon on  the  Mount  and  the  thirteenth  chapter 
of  First  Corinthians. 

When  we  have  thus  determined  to  gauge  the 
morality  of  the  Bible  by  the  highest  it  con- 
tains we  may  unhesitatingly  give  the  Scrip- 
tures the  primacy  among  manuals  of  conduct, 
and  ask  with  Faraday,  "Why  will  people  go 
astray  when  they  have  this  blessed  book  to 
guide  them?"  The  sufficient  answer  to  our 
question  will  be  that  either  they  do  not  read  it 
at  all,  or  that,  reading  it,  they  do  not  properly 
interpret  it.  The  effects  of  a  reasonable  appro- 
priation of  biblical  literature  are  such,  that 
even  men  without  much  repute  for  devotion, 
or  whose  attitude  toward  Christianity  as  a 

*/ 

system  is  one  of  suspicion,  unite  with  the 
saints  in  commending  it  enthusiastically. 

Attention  has  already  been  given  to  the  in- 
fluence which  the  Bible  has  exerted  upon  civili- 


OF  THE  BIBLE  161 

zation,  and  a  general  description  has  been  pre- 
sented of  its  power  as  a  liberator  of  thought, 
a  quickener  of  the  social  conscience,  and  an 
adjuster  of  political  rights  and  duties.  It 
could  not  have  fulfilled  these  functions  with- 
out first  affecting  the  individuals  who  in  the 
aggregate  constitute  society.  Said  Lord 
Bacon,  "There  never  was  found  in  any  age  of 
the  world  either  religion  or  law  that  did  so 
highly  exalt  the  public  good  as  the  Bible." 
Said  Goethe,  "The  mere  ethical  teachings  of 
the  Bible  would  alone  stamp  it  as  the  greatest 
literary  treasure  of  mankind."  Said  Thomas 
Jefferson,  "I  have  always  said,  and  always  will 
say,  that  the  studious  perusal  of  the  Sacred 
Volume  will  make  better  citizens,  better  hus- 
bands, and  better  fathers."  Eecognized  as  the 
foundation  of  the  surest  prudential  wisdom, 
without  which  success  in  life  is  impossible,  the 
Bible  has  sometimes  been  held  to  contain  the 
very  seeds  of  destruction  for  the  Christian 
religion  which  is  inculcated  by  it.  For  those 
who  follow  the  practical  advices  of  the  Bible 
for  the  conduct  of  their  lifework  are  fairly 
certain  to  attain  success,  and  experience  has 
shown  that  worldly  prosperity  has  a  strong 
tendency  to  discourage  the  simple  and  sacri- 
ficial life  which  fidelity  to  the  Christian  reli- 
gion requires.  But  the  higher  morality  which 
the  Bible  teaches,  and  which  swings  those  who 


162        THE  LITERARY  PRIMACY 

accept  it  away  from  the  blunder  of  esteeming 
worldly  success  the  worthiest  object  of  human 
effort,  effectively  counteracts  this  disintegrat- 
ing peril.  The  Bible  is  the  supreme  guide  for 
conduct.  As  Matthew  Arnold  says : 

As  well  imagine  a  man  with  a  sense  for  sculpture  not 
cultivating  it  by  the  help  of  the  remains  of  Greek  art, 
and  a  man  with  a  sense  for  poetry  not  cultivating  it  by 
the  help  of  Homer  and  Shakespeare,  as  a  man  with  a 
sense  for  conduct  not  cultivating  it  by  the  help  of  the 
Bible. 

To  the  same  purport  are  the  words  of 
William  H.  Seward : 

I  do  not  believe  human  society,  including  not  merely 
a  few  persons  in  any  state,  but  whole  masses  of  men, 
ever  has  attained  or  can  ever  attain,  a  high  state  of 
intelligence,  virtue,  security,  liberty,  or  happiness  with- 
out the  Holy  Scriptures. 

Thomas  H.  Huxley  will  not  be  regarded  as 
a  prejudiced  witness  for  the  Bible,  yet  he  could 
say: 

Take  the  Bible  as  a  whole;  make  the  severest  deduc- 
tions which  fair  criticism  can  dictate  for  shortcomings 
and  positive  errors;  eliminate,  as  a  sensible  lay  teacher 
would  do  if  left  to  himself,  all  that  it  is  not  desirable  for 
children  to  occupy  themselves  with;  and  there  still  re- 
mains in  this  old  literature  a  vast  residuum  of  moral 
beauty  and  grandeur.  And  then  consider  the  great  his- 
torical fact  that  for  three  centuries  this  book  has  been 
woven  into  the  life  of  all  that  is  best  and  noblest  in 
English  history.  ...  By  the  study  of  what  other  book 
could  children  be  so  much  humanized,  and  made  to  feel 
that  each  figure  in  that  vast  historical  procession  fills, 


OF  THE  BIBLE  163 

like  themselves,  but  a  momentary  space  in  the  interval 
between  two  eternities,  and  earns  the  blessings  or  the 
curses  of  all  time,  according  to  efforts  to  do  good  and 
hate  evil,  even  as  they  also  are  earning  their  payment 
for  their  work. 

Unite  with  this  the  verdict  of  John  Quincy 
Adams : 

I  speak  as  a  man  of  the  world  to  men  of  the  world; 
and  I  say  to  you — search  the  Scriptures.  The  Bible  is 
the  book  above  all  others  to  be  read  at  all  ages  and  in 
all  conditions  of  human  life;  and  not  to  be  read  once 
or  twice  through,  and  then  to  be  laid  aside,  but  to  be 
read  in  small  portions  every  day.  In  what  light  soever 
we  regard  the  Bible,  whether  with  reference  to  revela- 
tion, to  history  or  to  mortality,  it  is  an  invaluable  and 
inexhaustible  mine  of  knowledge  and  virtue. 

Dean  Stanley  relates  an  incident  which 
occurred  during  a  visit  he  paid  to  Heinrich 
von  Ewald,  the  German  scholar  and  critic, 
that  deserves  repeating.  A  copy  of  the  New 
Testament  which  was  lying  on  a  small  table 
chanced  to  fall  to  the  floor.  He  stooped  down, 
picked  it  up,  and  laid  it  on  the  table,  saying 
with  deep  emotion,  "In  this  little  book  is  con- 
tained all  the  best  wisdom  of  the  world."  The 
narrator  declares  that  "it  is  impossible  to  for- 
get the  noble  enthusiasm  with  which  this 
'dangerous  heretic,'  as  he  was  regarded, 
grasped  the  small  volume"  and  uttered  these 
words. 

It  is  perhaps  a  tribute  to  the  universality  of 
the  biblical  literature  that  on  a  building  of 


164        THE  LITERARY  PRIMACY 

the  Harvard  Law  School  there  should  be  in- 
scribed this  sentence  from  Exod.  18.  20 :  "Thou 
shalt  teach  them  ordinances  and  laws,  and 
shalt  show  them  the  way  wherein  they  must 
walk,  and  the  work  that  they  must  do." 

There  is  no  richer  storehouse  of  wisdom 
than  the  Bible,  and  many  learned  men  will 
\varmly  indorse  the  words  of  Whittier  in  his 
poem,  "Miriam" : 

We  search  the  world  for  truth;  we  cull 
The  good,  the  pure,  the  beautiful 
From  graven  stone  and  written  scroll, 
Prom  all  old  flower-fields  of  the  soul; 
And,  weary  seekers  of  the  best, 
We  come  back  laden  from  our  quest, 
To  find  that  all  the  sages  said 
Is  in  the  book  our  mothers  read. 

So  convinced  was  Jeremy  Taylor  of  the  pre- 
eminence of  the  Bible  as  a  book  for  the  regula- 
tion of  life,  that  he  gave  this  admonition :  "Do 
not  hear  or  read  the  Scriptures  for  any  other 
end  but  to  become  better  in  your  daily  walk, 
and  to  be  instructed  in  every  good  work  and 
increase  in  the  love  and  service  of  God."  It  is 
not  to  be  supposed  that  this  pious  instructor 
intended  by  this  injunction  to  put  a  ban  upon 
the  study  of  the  Bible  as  literature,  or  the 
reading  of  the  great  book  for  purposes  of  in- 
tellectual pleasure,  though  these  pursuits 
would  have  been  esteemed  by  him  of  small 
consequence  in  comparison  with  the  object  he 


OF  THE  BIBLE  165 

named.  What  Godet  wrote  a  friend  who  was 
preparing  for  the  ministry  is  a  more  discrimi- 
nating exhortation : 

Keep  your  two  readings  of  the  Bible  carefully  apart — 
one  for  your  personal  edification  and  the  other  for  the 
increase  of  your  knowledge,  and  never  allow  the  first 
to  be  merged  in  the  second.  Never  let  a  morning  pass 
without  feeding  on  the  Bible.  The  Bible  ought  to  be  the 
bread  of  life  for  our  hearts  before  it  becomes  a  light 
for  our  eyes.  I  speak  from  my  own  experience.  Don't 
be  afraid  that  your  scientific  reading  may  suffer  from 
this  separation.  Outward  separation  is  often  the  very 
path  of  inward  reunion. 

BengePs  suggestion  may  well  be  added  to 
these  counsels,  as  a  safeguard  against  the  folly 
of  making  subordinate  matters  of  dispropor- 
tionate importance :  "Eat  in  peace  the  bread  of 
Scripture,  without  troubling  thyself  about  the 
particles  of  sand  which  may  have  been  mixed 
up  with  it  by  the  millstone." 

Now  these  are  exemplary  advices  in  that 
they  warn  us  against  artificial  measures  with 
the  Bible,  against  false  preconceptions  and 
injurious  prejudices.  The  Bible  has  a  message 
for  each  of  us,  from  the  heart  of  man  to  the 
hearts  of  men.  We  must  read  it  untrammeled 
by  any  personal  prepossessions,  to  ascertain 
what  it  holds  of  good  for  us,  entirely  apart 
from  any  theory  we  may  hold  respecting  its 
inspiration.  "I  see  that  the  Bible  fits  into 
every  fold  and  crevice  of  the  human  heart," 


166        THE  LITERARY  PRIMACY 

said  Arthur  Henry  Hallam.  "I  am  a  man,  and 
I  believe  that  this  is  God's  book  because  it  is 
man's  book." 

II 

The  beneficial  effects  of  habitually  reading 
the  Bible,  as  disclosed  in  the  character  thus 
developed,  can  scarcely  be  described  in  terms 
too  large.  The  influence  of  any  great  litera- 
ture on  the  personal  invigoration  of  life  is 
very  considerable.  Scipio  Africanus,  we  are 
told,  was  made  a  hero  by  reading  Xenophon's 
graphic  histories.  In  them  he  met  and  con- 
versed with  Cyrus.  Selirn  II  heightened  his 
military  ardor,  it  is  said,  by  poring  over 
Caesar's  Commentaries.  In  them  he  learned 
the  art  of  war  by  studying  the  campaigns  of 
a  consummate  general.  Bourdaloue  perused 
the  writings  of  Paul,  Chrysostom,  and  Cicero 
every  year.  They  increased  his  blood-earnest- 
ness and  moral  fearlessness.  Illustrations  of 
this  sort  could  be  multiplied  almost  indefi- 
nitely from  the  biographies  of  forceful  men 
and  women.  But  the  Bible,  with  its  vast 
diversity  of  writings  and  its  marvelous  adapta- 
bility to  all  the  needs  of  humanity,  is  able  to 
show  more  wonderful  results  in  the  strengthen- 
ing of  character  than  any  other  literature 
whatsoever.  It  is  quite  unnecessary  to  point 
to  particular  instances,  since  it  is  common 


OF  THE  BIBLE  167 

knowledge  that  the  most  vigorous  nations  in 
the  world  are  those  which  have  been  the  bene- 
ficiaries of  Bible  culture,  and  that  the  firmest 
heroes  of  these  several  countries  are  men  who 
have  inflamed  their  courage  and  heightened 
their  aspirations  from  the  teachings  of  the 
Scriptures.  Anent  the  fructifying  influence 
of  the  Bible  on  national  character  take  the 
testimony  of  two  of  America's  foremost  men : 
Says  Theodore  Koosevelt : 

Every  thinking  man,  when  he  thinks,  realizes  that  the 
teachings  of  the  Bible  are  so  interwoven  and  intertwined 
with  our  whole  civic  and  social  life,  that  it  would  be 
literally — I  do  not  mean  figuratively,  but  literally — 
impossible  for  us  to  figure  to  ourselves  what  that  life 
would  be  if  these  teachings  were  removed. 


At  the  close  of  a  lecture  on  The  Bible  and 
Progress,  Woodrow  Wilson  said: 

I  ask  of  every  man  and  woman  in  this  audience  that, 
from  this  night  on,  they  will  realize  that  part  of  the 
destiny  of  America  lies  in  their  daily  perusal  of  this 
great  book  of  revelation — that  if  they  would  see  America 
free  and  pure  they  will  make  their  own  spirits  free 
and  pure  by  this  baptism  of  the  Holy  Scriptures. 

No  force  more  frequently  depresses  the 
moral  vitality  of  human  beings  than  the  sor- 
rows and  burdens  of  life,  for  which  they  can 
give  no  reasonable  account.  Aware  of  this 
many  of  the  world's  noblest  writers  have 
sought  to  pour  balm  upon  troubled  spirits, 
and  to  hearten  them  for  the  conflicts  of  life 


168        THE  LITERARY  PRIMACY 

by  such  words  as  should  seem  to  make  the 
discipline  of  suffering  more  rational,  or  at 
least  fortify  the  soul  against  evils  which  must 
be  endured,  however  inexplicable  they  may 
be.  In  this  ministry  to  the  vexed  and  discon- 
solate the  Bible  holds  the  crown  of  supremacy. 
Eiobert  Browning  has  treated  the  problem  of 
pain  and  suffering  with  such  intelligence  and 
skill  as  few  men  have  shown  who  have  under- 
taken to  reconcile  their  fellows  to  the  ordeal 
of  a  troubled  life.  But  in  Ezekiel,  Proverbs, 
the  Psalms,  Jeremiah,  and  especially  Job,  we 
have  demonstrations  of  ability  in  this  regard 
surpassing  everything  outside  the  range  of 
Scripture.  "Pascal  says  that  Job  and  Solo- 
mon knew  most  and  spoke  best  about  the 
misery  of  man.  One  was  the  happiest,  and  the 
other  the  most  unhappy  of  mortals.  One  knew 
by  experience  the  vanity  of  pleasures,  as  the 
other  knew  in  the  same  way  the  reality  of 
evils."  Gladstone  said,  "On  most  occasions 
of  very  sharp  pressure  and  trial  some  word  of 
Scripture  has  come  home  to  me  as  if  borne  on 
angels'  wings."  With  greater  particularity 
William  T.  Stead,  the  brilliant  editor  and 
publicist,  relates  his  experiences  with  the  great 
book: 

The  first  time  I  felt  the  influence  of  the  Bible  was 
when  I  first  went  to  a  boarding  school.  I  was  unspeak- 
ably miserable  and  forlorn.  I  was  only  twelve,  and  had 


OF  THE  BIBLE  169 

never  been  away  from  home  before.  It  was  then  I  dis- 
covered the  consolatory  influence  of  many  of  the  Psalms. 
Take  them  all  around,  the  Psalms  are  probably  the  best 
reading  in  the  world  when  you  are  hard  hit  and  ready 
to  perish.  After  I  left  school,  Proverbs  influenced  me 
most;  and  I  remember,  when  I  was  first  offered  an  editor- 
ship, reading  all  the  Proverbs  relating  to  kings  as 
affording  the  best  advice  I  was  likely  to  get  anywhere 
as  to  the  right  discharge  of  editorial  duties.  When  I 
was  busy  with  active  direct  work  among  the  ignorant 
and  poor,  the  story  of  Moses'  troubles  with  the  Jews  in 
the  wilderness  was  most  helpful.  Later,  when,  from 
1876  to  1878,  no  one  knew  when  he  went  to  bed  but  that 
by  morning  Lord  Beaconsfield  would  have  plunged  the 
empire  into  war,  the  Hebrew  prophets  formed  my  Bible. 
In  1885  it  was  the  story  of  the  evangelists.  If  I  had 
to  single  out  any  one  chapter  which  I  am  conscious  of 
having  influenced  me  most,  I  should  say  the  first  of 
Joshua,  with  its  oft-repeated  exhortation  to  be  strong 
and  to  be  very  courageous;  and  if  I  had  to  single  out 
any  particular  verses,  it  would  be  those  which  were 
taught  me  when  a  boy,  and  which  I  long  afterward  saw 
on  the  wall  of  General  Gordon's  room  at  Southampton: 
"Trust  in  the  Lord  with  all  thy  heart;  lean  not  unto 
thine  own  understanding.  In  all  thy  ways  acknowledge 
him,  and  he  shall  direct  thy  paths." 

After  returning  from  his  hazardous  journey- 
ings  in  Tibet,  Sir  Sven  Hedin  wrote :  "Without 
a  strong  and  absolute  belief  in  God  and  in  his 
almighty  protection  I  should  not  have  been 
able  to  live  in  Asia's  wildest  regions  for  twelve 
years.  During  all  my  journeys  the  Bible  has 
always  been  my  best  lecture  and  company." 

Out  from  the  heart  of  nature  rolled 
The  burdens  of  the  Bible  old; 


170        THE  LITEKARY  PRIMACY 

The  litanies  of  nations  came 
Like  the  volcano's  tongue  of  flame 
Up  from  the  burning  core  below — 
The  canticles  of  love  and  woe. 
The  word  unto  the  Prophets  spoken 
Was  writ  on  tablets  yet  unbroken; 
Still  floats  upon  the  morning  wind, 
Still  whispers  to  the  willing  mind; 
One  accent  of  the  Holy  Ghost 
The  heedless  world  has  never  lost. 


So  sings  Emerson;  and  while  the  last  two 
lines  of  this  quotation  from  his  poem  called 
"The  Problem"  cannot  be  taken  literally,  what 
goes  before  truthfully  expresses  the  reason  for 
the  Bible's  incomparable  power  to  move  the 
souls  of  the  sorrow-stricken  and  to  assuage 
their  griefs.  It  is  man's  literature — the  prod- 
uct of  a  bleeding  heart — suffused  with  divine 
compassion — inspired  by  the  Holy  Ghost.  Its 
sublime  union  of  the  divine  and  human  is 
nowhere  more  impressively  exhibited  than  in 
the  prayers  which  are  found  here  and  there 
in  its  pages.  Robert  Louis  Stevenson  has  pro- 
duced a  book  of  prayers  notable  for  their 
simplicity,  suitability,  and  chaste  eloquence; 
and  many  writers  have  essayed  to  put  into 
form  for  devotional  use  offerings  of  praise, 
thanksgiving,  and  petition.  But  the  prayers 
of  the  Bible  transcend  them  all,  as  a  reading 
of  the  supplications  of  Hannah,  David,  Solo- 
mon, Habakkuk,  and  others  will  prove. 


OF  THE  BIBLE  171 

George  Peabody,  when  an  old  man,  said  to 
a  lad  who  for  some  purpose  had  brought  a 
Bible  to  him  in  his  office :  "My  boy,  you  carry 
that  book  easily  in  your  youth,  but  when  you 
are  as  old  as  I  am,  it  must  carry  you."  But 
if  we  are  not  acquainted  with  the  glorious 
literature  of  the  Bible,  it  cannot  have  the 
opportunity  of  refreshing  and  invigorating  us 
when  the  evils  of  life  oppress  and  the  decrepi- 
tude of  old  age  steals  upon  us. 

If  we  pursue  with  penetration  our  inquiries 
into  the  reasons  for  the  Bible's  unparalleled 
power  over  the  conscience  and  spirit  of  man- 
kind, we  shall  discover  certain  fundamental 
truths  of  the  utmost  value  in  attempting  to 
estimate  the  full  worth  of  the  Scriptures. 
Among  these  may  be  mentioned  first  of  all  the 
Bible's  ability  to  reveal  men  to  themselves. 
In  many  pagan  countries  the  people,  on  mak- 
ing their  first  acquaintance  with  the  book,  are 
with  difficulty  persuaded  that  it  is  not  a 
modern  book,  written  by  shrewd  missionaries, 
with  the  needs  and  deficiencies  of  their  heathen 
audiences  in  mind,  so  perfectly  does  it  report 
their  characteristic  sinful  propensities.  The 
Bible  has  often  been  called  a  mirror,  and  as 
a  medium  of  communicating  to  man  a  clear 
sense  of  his  real  being  it  has  no  equal.  We  are 
often  urged  to  read  the  best  fiction  as  a  means 
of  acquiring  a  desirable  knowledge  of  human 


172        THE  LITERARY  PRIMACY 

nature.  Biography  is  recommended  for  the 
same  purpose.  The  poets  are  suggested  be- 
cause they  delve  into  the  depths  of  the  spirit 
of  man.  But  no  literature  lays  bare  the  inmost 
secrets  of  the  human  heart  with  such  merciless 
fidelity  to  truth  as  does  the  Bible.  Thousands 
have  been  driven  by  terror  away  from  its  blaz- 
ing disclosures  of  humanity's  weaknesses  and 
wickedness  who  ought  to  have  been  goaded 
thereby  to  penitence  and  righteous  resolution, 
thus  confirming  the  observation  of  a  man  of 
humble  circumstances  who,  upon  reading  the 
Bible  attentively  for  the  first  time,  said  to  his 
wife,  "If  this  book  is  true  we  are  lost,"  but 
who,  upon  pushing  his  way  into  farther  depths 
of  the  book,  exclaimed,  "But  if  this  book  is 
true  we  may  be  saved." 

From  the  rude  awakening  which  many  a 
conscience  receives  from  a  hurried  glance  into 
this  mirror  the  Bible  passes  on  to  a  companion- 
ship with  the  persistent  reader  which  amounts 
to  a  spiritual  monitorship.  No  intimate  friend 
could  more  indefatigably  and  affectionately 
pursue  a  wayward  comrade  with  admonitions 
and  encouragements  of  a  personal  character 
than  does  the  Bible  attach  itself  as  a  private 
counselor  to  him  who  freely  reads  it.  Said 
Robert  Browning,  "Sydney  Smith  laughs 
somewhere  at  some  Methodist  or  other  whose 
wont  was,  on  meeting  an  acquaintance  in  the 


OF  THE  BIBLE  173 

street,  to  open  at  once  on  him  with  some  in- 
quiry after  the  state  of  his  soul.  Sydney 
knows  better  now,  and  sees  that  one  might 
quite  as  wisely  ask  such  questions  as  the  price 
of  Illinois  stock  or  condition  of  glebeland."  If 
there  be  no  such  energetic  soul  to  prod  us  with 
eternal  queries  about  our  spiritual  estate,  the 
Bible  will  supply  inquisitorial  agencies  in 
abundance.  There  is  no  getting  away  from  its 
scalpel.  There  is  no  escaping  its  radium 
searchings.  The  Bible  is  a  man's  book  because 
it  knows  man  to  the  very  bottom  of  his  life. 

Having  revealed  a  man  to  himself,  the  Bible 
proceeds  to  teach  him  a  philosophy  of  life 
which  makes  him  confident  for  time  and  eter- 
nity. "We  account,"  said  Sir  Isaac  Newton, 
"the  Scriptures  of  God  to  be  the  most  sublime 
philosophy."  It  is  also  the  most  practical,  for 
it  is  adapted  to  every  grade  of  intelligence. 
The  contrast  between  those  who  have  no 
authority  for  life,  no  guide  for  conduct,  and 
those  who  steer  their  course  by  this  book  was 
skillfully  drawn  by  Cowper  in  his  comparison 
of  the  indigent  English  lace-worker  with  the 
supercilious  French  philosopher  Voltaire: 

Yon  cottager  who  weaves  at  her  own  door, 
Pillows  and  bobbins  all  her  little  store, 
Just  earns  a  scanty  pittance,  and  at  night 
Lies  down  secure,  her  heart  and  pocket  light; 
Just  knows,  and  knows  no  more,  her  Bible  true, 
A  truth  the  brilliant  Frenchman  never  knew; 


174        THE  LITERARY  PRIMACY 

And  in  that  treasure  reads  with  sparkling  eyes 
Her  title  to  a  mansion  in  the  skies. 
O  happy  peasant!     O  unhappy  bard! 
His  the  mere  tinsel,  hers  the  rich  reward. 
He,  praised  perhaps  for  ages  yet  to  come; 
She,  never  heard  of  half  a  mile  from  home; 
He,  lost  in  errors  his  vain  heart  prefers, 
She  safe  in  the  simplicity  of  hers. 

During  the  coronation  ceremonies  of  the 
young  King  Edward  VI,  three  swords  were 
brought  to  him,  as  a  sign  that  he  was  to  be 
ruler  over  three  kingdoms.  He  remarked  that 
there  was  still  another  sword  which  had  been 
overlooked.  When  surprise  was  expressed,  the 
royal  lad  went  on  to  say:  "It  is  the  Bible, 
which  is  the  Sword  of  the  Spirit,  and  to  be 
preferred  before  these  swords.  That  ought  in 
all  right  to  govern  us,  who  use  them  for  the 
people's  safety  by  God's  appointment.  With- 
out that  sword  we  are  nothing,  we  can  do  noth- 
ing, we  have  no  power.  From  that  we  are 
what  we  are  this  day.  From  that  alone  we 
obtain  all  power  and  virtue,  grace  and  salva- 
tion, and  whatever  we  have  of  divine  strength.'' 
It  does  not  diminish  the  worth  of  these  words 
that  they  may  have  been  suggested  to  the  boy 
by  some  older  head,  since  we  know  how  devout 
an  attitude  he  took  toward  the  Bible  through 
all  the  years  of  his  brief  reign,  and  since  we 
have  many  proofs  of  the  truth  of  those  words 
independently  of  their  authorship.  The  kings 


OF  THE  BIBLE  175 

of  the  earth,  no  less  than  the  lowliest  of  their 
subjects,  can  find  no  lamp  for  their  pathway 
upon  whose  guiding  beams  they  can  more 
confidently  rely  than  the  Bible. 

When  one  turns  to  the  best  that  the  writers 
of  the  Orient  and  the  classic  poets  and  philoso- 
phers of  Greece  and  Rome  have  set  forth  with 
reference  to  the  possibilities  of  a  future  life, 
and  the  nature  of  those  rewards  and  penalties 
which  the  intuitions  of  humanity  have  in  all 
ages  declared  to  be  inevitable,  on  the  supposi- 
tion that  personality  survives  the  grave,  the 
impression  made  is  one  of  uncertainty  and 
dissatisfaction.  We  discover  in  the  Bible 
alone  a  definite,  undeviating,  and  reasonable 
doctrine  of  the  consequences  of  this  life 
through  the  projection  of  mundane  experience 
into  the  unlimited  existence  of  a  future  world. 
"I  am  a  creature  of  a  day,"  said  John  Wesley, 
"passing  through  life  as  an  arrow  through  the 
air.  I  am  a  spirit,  coming  from  God,  and  re- 
turning to  God;  just  hovering  over  the  great 
gulf;  a  few  moments  hence  I  am  no  more  seen ; 
I  drop  into  an  unchangeable  eternity.  I  want 
to  know  one  thing — the  way  to  heaven;  how 
to  land  safe  on  that  happy  shore.  God  himself 
has  condescended  to  teach  the  way.  He  hath 

»/ 

written  it  down  in  a  book.  O  give  me  that 
book.  At  any  price  give  me  the  book  of  God. 
I  have  it;  here  is  knowledge  enough  for  me. 


176        THE  LITERARY  PRIMACY 

Let  me  be  a  man  of  one  book.  Here  then  I  am 
far  from  the  busy  ways  of  men.  I  sit  down 
alone;  only  God  is  here.  In  his  presence  I 
open,  I  read  his  book ;  for  this  end — to  find  the 
way  to  heaven." 

The  Bible  not  only  thus  reveals  a  man  to 
himself,  places  before  him  a  reliable  philoso- 
phy of  life,  and  gives  him  a  solid  expectation 
of  immortality,  but  it  does  all  this  through 
the  unveiling  of  a  great  personality  known  to 
history  as  Jesus  of  Nazareth  and  to  faith  as 
the  Son  of  God.  As  spiritual  literature  the 
Bible  carries  its  own  key.  Without  it  the  in- 
terpretation of  the  Bible  is  a  profitless  and 
confusing  business.  In  Jesus  the  Christ  the 
shadows  of  this  book  resolve  themselves  into 
a  radiant  picture  of  God's  age-long  process 
of  redeeming  mankind  from  meanness  and  sin. 
"Ye  search  the  Scriptures,"  said  Jesus  to  some 
who  were  unfriendly  to  him,  "because  ye  think 
that  in  them  ye  have  eternal  life;  and  these 
are  thev  which  bear  witness  of  me."  It  is  not 

ts 

too  much  to  say  that  the  supreme  function  of 
the  Bible  is  to  convey  to  men  a  knowledge  of 
God  through  one  sublime  Figure,  who  is  "the 
effulgence  of  his  glory,  and  the  very  image  of 
his  substance."  All  history  previous  to  his 
advent  is  but  the  dramatized  evolution  of  the 
divine  idea  for  human  disenthrallment.  All 
prophecy,  whether  predictive  or  hortatory, 


OF  THE  BIBLE  177 

points  unerringly  to  him.  All  poetry,  romance, 
fiction,  tradition,  myth,  fable,  and  philosophy 
of  the  ancient  people  of  Jehovah,  whether 
dimly  recognized  or  utterly  unknown  to  their 
authors,  were  weaving  garlands  for  his  brow. 
He  is  the  center  upon  which  all  this  splendid 
literature  converges,  and  he  is  the  power  by 
which  its  incalculable  wealth  of  thought  is 
transmuted  into  living  character. 

After  a  fleet  of  foreign  vessels  had  left  the 
bay  of  Jeddo,  a  Japanese  gentleman  of  high 
standing  and  influence  was  walking  one  day 
upon  the  beach.  He  noticed  a  little  object 
floating  on  the  water  at  some  distance,  and 
sent  one  of  his  attendants  into  the  sea  to 
secure  it.  They  brought  to  him  a  small  book. 
He  could  make  nothing  out  of  it.  He  carried 
it  to  some  Dutch  traders,  and  they  told  him  it 
was  a  copy  of  the  New  Testament  in  English. 
That  was  of  no  use  to  him.  He  was  told  that 
the  book  had  been  translated  into  Chinese,  and 
that  by  writing  to  China  he  could  obtain  a 
copy  of  that  version.  When  he  had  finally 
secured  it,  he  invited  in  some' friends  and  they 
read  it  together.  There  was  much  in  it  that 
was  unintelligible  to  them,  for  they  had  no 
copy  of  the  Old  Testament  to  introduce  them 
to  the  meaning  of  this  mysterious  volume. 
They  eventually  learned  that  in  Nagasaki 
there  was  a  man  whose  business  it  was  to  ex- 


178        THE  LITERARY  PRIMACY 

plain  the  book.  They  dispatched  an  inter- 
preter to  this  man  to  proffer  their  questions 
concerning  what  they  had  been  reading.  The 
minister  answered  them,  and  an  interchange 
of  inquiry  and  reply  went  on  for  two  or  three 
years.  Then  the  Japanese  gentleman  notified 
the  missionary  that  he  was  coming  to  see  him. 
His  retinue  was  so  great  that  on  arriving  it 
filled  the  whole  of  the  ground  floor  of  the 
temple  in  which  the  Christian  teacher  was 
living.  In  a  private  conversation  after  the 
public  interview  the  Japanese  gentleman  ex- 
pressed a  wish  to  be  baptized,  and  said,  "When 
I  read  the  character  of  Jesus  Christ,  I  cannot 
tell  you  how  I  was  affected.  I  had  never  heard 
or  read  or  thought  of  or  imagined  any  such 
personage  as  that;  and  I  believe  in  him  and 
I  love  him.  You  cannot  tell  how  much  I,  a 
mature  man,  reading  that  for  the  first  time, 
was  affected  by  the  life  and  character  of  Jesus 
Christ."  Thus  on  the  bosom  of  that  broad 
stream  which  we  call  the  Bible,  and  which  is 
fast  girdling  the  globe  with  its  sanctifying 
waters,  the  knowledge  of  God  in  Christ  is 
being  borne  to  earth's  remotest  inhabitants. 
It  is  in  this  way  the  literature  of  a  great  people 
attains  its  true  significance. 

It  is  not  strange  that  in  the  early  Christian 
centuries  men  and  women  suffered  martyrdom 
rather  than  surrender  their  ownership  of  writ- 


OF  THE  BIBLE  179 

ings  which  possessed  such  inestimable  worth. 
Eusebius,  the  church  historian,  relates  a  touch- 
ing story  of  a  young  Christian  officer  of  the 
Roman  army  who  was  quartered  at  Csesarea  in 
Palestine.  He  was  greatly  esteemed  by  his 
superiors  and  was  in  line  for  early  promotion. 
Out  of  envy  a  comrade  denounced  him  to  the 
commander  as  a  Christian.  He  was  summoned 
before  his  master,  asked  if  the  charge  was  true, 
confessed  at  once,  and  was  urged  to  abjure  his 
faith.  He  was  given  three  hours  for  reflection. 
He  went  to  a  small  Christian  church  and  told 
his  story  to  the  aged  bishop,  who  took  the  Bible 
in  one  hand  and  the  soldier's  sword  in  the 
other,  and  bade  him  take  his  choice.  Without 
delay  the  soldier  grasped  the  Bible,  returned 
to  assert  that  he  would  continue  to  be  a  Chris- 
tian, and  lost  his  life  for  his  loyalty  to  the 
Scriptures. 

No  such  extreme  temptation  will,  in  all 
probability,  ever  be  offered  to  men  in  civilized 
lands.  The  Bible  is  making  its  conquests 
everywhere  in  the  earth,  and  where  it  triumphs 
peace,  order,  and  fraternity  prevail.  But  it  is 
to  be  hoped  that  the  ease  and  immunity  from 
punishment  with  which  men  may  now  profess 
their  devotion  to  the  Bible  and  the  faith  which 
it  teaches  will  not  betray  them  into  the  folly 
of  esteeming  lightly  that  which  has  been  be- 
stowed upon  them  at  such  high  cost,  and  the 


180        THE  LITEKARY  PRIMACY 

possession  of  which  is  the  richest  blessing  of 
their  lives. 

A  song  among  Welsh  peasants,  prepared 
for  them  by  a  clerical  poet  at  a  time  when  the 
Scriptures  in  their  native  tongue  were  being 
widely  distributed,  contains  wholesome  truth 
for  our  times : 

The  Little  Bible  for  a  crown 
Thou  mayest  buy  in  any  town — 
The  Bible  in  thy  mother's  tongue. 

Ere  that  thou  lack 

Sell  shirt  from  back, 
'Tis  trustier  than  thy  father's  roof 
To  keep  thee  sure  and  peril  proof. 


OF  THE  BIBLE  181 


CHAPTER  VI 

THE  BIBLE  AS  INSPIRED  LITERATURE 

IT  is  quite  impossible  to  say  anything  new 
about  the  sublimity  of  the  Bible,  but  the  Bible 
is  always  saying  something  new  about  itself. 
Practically  all  that  is  most  noble  in  praise  of 
the  Scriptures  was  said  during  the  early 
centuries  of  Christianity.  But  the  Scriptures 
themselves  continue  to  pour  forth  tides  of  in- 
spiration, and  seem  to  be  inexhaustible  as 
fountains  of  intellectual  and  spiritual  vitality. 
"I  am  convinced,"  said  John  Eobinson  to  the 
Pilgrim  Fathers  who  sailed  away  from  Delft 
in  the  Mayflower,  "that  the  Lord  hath  yet  more 
light  and  truth  to  break  forth  from  his  Holy 
Word."  This  is  precisely  what  has  occurred 
in  the  centuries  since  these  words  were  uttered. 
Says  Francis  Peabody,  "As  it  has  happened  a 
thousand  times  before,  so  it  is  likely  to  happen 
again,  that  the  gospel,  examined  afresh,  with 
a  new  problem  in  mind,  will  seem  to  have  been 
written  in  large  part  to  meet  the  needs  of  the 
new  age."  Dean  Stanley  used  to  say  that  the 
Bible  had  far  more  in  it  than  had  ever  been 
taken  out  of  it.  Vinet  declared,  "The  world 


182        THE  LITERARY  PRIMACY 

will  come  to  an  end  when  Christianity  shall 
have  spoken  its  last  word."  At  seventy-seven 
years  of  age  a  prominent  preacher  said,  "Much 
in  the  Bible  seems  like  news  to  me."  This 
power  of  the  Scriptures  to  vitalize  the  thought 
of  men  is  of  itself  a  demonstration  of  its  own 
inherent  inspiration. 


The  method  in  which  the  Bible  writings 
were  inspired  is  sufficiently  indicated  by  the 
statement  in  2  Pet.  1.  21 :  "Prophecy  came  not 
in  old  time  by  the  will  of  man;  but  holy  men 
of  God  spake  as  they  were  moved  by  the  Holy 
Ghost."  The  prophet  was  a  seer,  into  whose 
mind  and  heart  God  had  poured  the  rich 
stream  of  his  own  life,  thus  imparting  clear 
moral  judgment  and  deep  spiritual  enthu- 
siasm. When  the  prophet  spoke  for  God  he 
was  speaking  from  God.  He  was  borne  along 
by  the  Holy  Spirit  just  as  modern  preachers 
frequently  leave  the  impression  upon  their 
auditors  that  they  are  being  carried  quite 
beyond  themselves  by  a  power  which  is  greater 
than  their  native  abilities.  Luther  told 
Melanchthon  that  "because  the  prophets  were 
holy  and  serious  people,  therefore  God  spoke 
with  them  in  their  consciences,  which  the 
prophets  held  as  sure  and  certain  revelation." 


OF  THE  BIBLE  183 

It  was  for  this  reason  that  the  prophets  were 
wont  to  authenticate  their  deliverances  by  the 
phrase:  "Thus  saith  the  Lord." 

An  examination  of  the  Scriptures  will  show 
that  it  was  upon  this  kind  of  inspiration  that 
the  great  messengers  of  truth  built  their  reli- 
ance for  the  authentication  of  their  utterances. 
The  author  of  the  Epistle  to  the  Hebrews 
states  the  matter  comprehensively  and  yet  con- 
cisely when  he  says:  "God,  who  at  sundry 
times  and  in  divers  manners  spake  in  time 
past  unto  the  fathers  by  the  prophets,  hath  in 
these  last  days  spoken  unto  us  by  his  Son, 
whom  he  hath  appointed  heir  of  all  things" 
(Heb.  1.  1,  2).  God  was  using  a  variety  of 
spokesmen  through  the  ages  preceding  the 
advent  of  Jesus,  but  in  the  world's  Redeemer 
the  office  of  prophecy  culminated.  Christ 
spoke  with  finality.  When  Moses  was  ordained 
of  God  to  perform  the  task  of  deliverance, 
which  he  thought  too  vast  for  his  talents  and 
begged  that  he  might  be  excused  from  the  im- 
possible work  on  the  ground  that  he  was  not 
an  eloquent  man,  but  slow  of  speech,  the  Lord 
said  unto  him :  "Who  hath  made  man's  mouth? 
or  who  maketh  the  dumb,  or  deaf,  or  the  see- 
ing, or  the  blind?  have  not  I,  the  Lord?  Now 
therefore  go,  and  I  will  be  with  thy  mouth,  and 
teach  thee  what  thou  shalt  say"  (Exod.  4. 
11,  12).  When  Jeremiah  received  his  commis- 


184        THE  LITERARY  PRIMACY 

sion  as  a  prophet  unto  the  nations,  he  said: 
"Ah,  Lord  God !  behold,  I  cannot  speak ;  for  I 
am  a  child.  Then  the  Lord  put  forth  his  hand, 
and  touched  his  mouth,  and  said  to  him:  Be- 
hold, I  have  put  my  words  in  thy  mouth" 
(Jer.  1.  6,  9).  When  Isaiah  beheld  the 
sublime  vision  of  the  Lord  upon  a  throne,  high 
and  lifted  up,  attended  by  seraphims,  and  felt 
himself  disqualified  for  the  prophetic  office  be- 
cause he  was  a  man  of  unclean  lips,  and  dwelt 
in  the  midst  of  a  people  of  unclean  lips,  a  live 
coal  taken  from  the  altar  of  the  temple  was 
laid  upon  his  lips,  and  he  was  told  that  his 
iniquity  had  been  taken  away.  Then  when 
he  heard  the  voice  of  the  Lord  saying :  "Whom 
shall  I  send,  and  who  will  go  for  us?"  he  re- 
sponded, "Here  am  I ;  send  me,"  and  God  said 
"Go,"  and  gave  him  the  message  he  was  to 
declare  (Isa.  6).  Jesus  said  to  his  disciples, 
in  referring  to  the  test  which  would  be  made 
of  them  before  synagogues  by  their  enemies: 
"When  they  shall  lead  you,  and  deliver  you 
up,  take  no  thought  beforehand  what  ye  shall 
speak,  neither  do  ye  premeditate;  but  whatso- 
ever shall  be  given  you  in  that  hour,  that  speak 
ye;  for  it  is  not  ye  that  speak,  but  the  Holy 
Ghost"  (Mark  13.  11).  In  his  wonderful  fare- 
well discourse  before  the  disciples  on  the  eve 
of  his  crucifixion,  Jesus  said :  "The  Comforter, 
which  is  the  Holy  Ghost,  whom  the  Father  will 


OF  THE  BIBLE  185 

send  in  my  name,  he  shall  teach  you  all  things, 
and  bring  all  things  to  your  remembrance, 
whatsoever  I  have  said  unto  you"  (John  14. 
26).  And  again:  "When  he,  the  Spirit  of 
truth,  is  come,  he  will  guide  you  into  all  truth : 
for  he  shall  not  speak  of  himself ;  but  whatso- 
ever he  shall  hear,  that  shall  he  speak:  and 
he  will  show  you  things  to  come"  (John  16. 
13).  In  all  these  instances,  and  many  others 
which  might  be  given,  God  is  represented  as 
urging  on  by  his  personal  pressure  the  speech 
which  his  servants  are  to  deliver.  Now  this  is 
the  process  by  which  the  writers  of  the  Old 
Testament  and  the  New  Testament  Scriptures 
fulfilled  their  mission;  and  it  will  be  remem- 
bered that  much  which  appears  in  literary 
form  was  first  given  orally. 

It  is  not  books,  therefore,  but  men  of  whom 
we  predicate  inspiration.  No  one  fancies,  it 
is  to  be  hoped,  that  the  Spirit  of  God  operates 
on  parchment  or  paper  or  leaden  types  or  any 
other  material  employed  to  convey  truth  to 
those  who  can  read.  Only  the  wielders  of 
these  agencies  of  communication  can  be  truly 
inspired.  We  simply  make  use  of  a  poetic 
figure  when  we  speak  of  inspired  pens,  pages, 
poems,  books.  It  is  the  human  mind  produc- 
ing literature  that  is  inspired.  In  the  early 
part  of  Genesis  a  beautiful  picture  is  presented 
which  portrays  God  as  blowing  the  breath  of 


186        THE  LITERARY  PRIMACY 

life  into  the  nostrils  of  the  inanimate  figure 
he  had  created,  endowing  the  body  with  a 
spirit.  Here  we  have  a  fine  symbol  of  the  fact 
which  is  of  highest  significance  in  the  person- 
ality of  man.  He  has  received  the  breath  of 
life  from  God's  inspiration.  The  energy  of  the 
Eternal  has  been  imparted  to  him.  He  is  a 
being  capable  of  responding  to  the  mind  of  the 
Creator.  Nothing  but  a  rational  creature, 
made  in  the  spiritual  image  of  God,  can  yield 
to  divine  inspiration.  Still  earlier  in  the 
Genesis  account  of  creation  the  Spirit  of  God 
is  represented  as  moving  upon  chaos  and  pro- 
ducing out  of  it  life  in  manifold  expressions, 
but  there  was  no  conscious,  intelligent  re- 
sponse to  the  touch  of  the  infinite  thought; 
God  was  simply  operating  creatively  upon  the 
abyss.  Nor  would  it  be  correct  to  say  that 
God  inspires  animals  of  a  lower  order  than 
man,  simply  because  he  may  be  represented  as 
sustaining  their  lives  by  his  personal  will. 
They  have  no  spiritual  intelligence  and  are 
therefore  not  touched  by  what  we  call  inspira- 
tion. 

Inspiration,  therefore,  is  bringing  the 
human  mind  into  responsive  contact  with  the 
mind  of  God.  Illustrations  of  this  process  are 
multitudinous  in  number.  "What  is  prayer," 
asks  Emerson,  "but  a  sally  of  the  soul  after 
the  unfound  infinite?"  "No  man  ever  prayed 


OF  THE  BIBLE  187 

earnestly  without  learning  much."  "The  in- 
spiration of  the  Almighty  giveth  them  under- 
standing/7 we  are  told  in  the  book  of  Job 
(32.  8).  "If  any  of  you  lack  wisdom,  let  him 
ask  of  God,  that  giveth  to  all  men  liberally, 
and  upbraideth  not;  and  it  shall  be  given  him" 
( James  1.5).  "The  secret  of  the  Lord  is  with 
them  that  fear  him"  (Psa.  25.  14).  In  the 
book  of  Exodus  we  are  told  that  God  had 
called  out  Bezaleel  for  wrork  upon  the  taber- 
nacle and  "filled  him  with  the  spirit  of  God, 
in  wisdom,  in  understanding,  and  in  knowl- 
edge, and  in  all  manner  of  workmanship ;  and 
to  devise  curious  works,  to  work  in  gold,  and 
in  silver,  and  in  brass,  and  in  the  cutting  of 
stones,  to  set  them,  and  in  carving  of  wood, 
to  make  any  manner  of  cunning  work"  (Exod. 
35.  30-33).  There  was  a  man  named  Ephraem 
Syrus  whom  his  comrades  dubbed  "The  harp 
of  the  Holy  Ghost."  Novalis  called  Spinoza 
"A  God  intoxicated  man."  Paul  prayed  that 
certain  Christians  might  be  "filled  with  all 
the  fulness  of  God"  (Eph.  3.  19).  In  all  these 
examples  we  have  illustrations  of  varying 
types  of  inspiration,  though  the  source  and 
method  are  identical. 

Inspiration  as  thus  described  is  not  limited 
to  the  writings  of  the  Bible.  It  will  be  remem- 
bered that  on  Mars'  Hill  Paul  quoted  from  one 
of  the  Grecian  poets  in  substantiation  of  his 


188        THE  LITEEARY  PRIMACY 

teaching  that  God  is  not  far  from  any  of  us, 
but  "in  him  we  live,  and  move,  and  have  our 
being."  Peter  affirmed  when  his  eyes  had  been 
opened,  after  his  interview  with  Cornelius,  the 
centurion,  "Of  a  truth  I  perceive  that  God  is 
no  respecter  of  persons;  but  in  every  nation 
he  that  feareth  him,  and  worketh  righteous- 
ness, is  accepted  with  him"  (Acts  10.  34,  35). 
Jesus  himself  recognized  in  the  Syrophenician 
woman  and  the  Gentile  centurion  such  faith 
as  he  had  not  found  in  Israel.  Augustine  con- 
fessed that  he  was  incited  toward  a  nobler  life 
by  reading  the  Hortensius  of  Cicero.  Socrates 
said,  "I  am  moved  by  a  certain  divine  and 
spiritual  impulse."  Pericles  before  making 
one  of  his  famous  speeches  was  accustomed  to 
ask  that  the  gods  would  preserve  him  from 
uttering  anything  which  was  not  helpful  to  his 
subject.  Haydn,  referring  to  his  oratorio,  "The 
Creation,"  said,  "It  was  not  from  me  but  from 
above  it  all  came."  Wherever  a  writer  is  in 
communion  with  God  he  will  inevitably  speak 
for  God.  Nearly  every  race  has  its  sacred 
books.  No  man  can  impartially  examine  them 
without  being  convinced  that  "the  true  Light, 
which  lighteth  every  man  that  cometh  into  the 
world,"  has  shed  his  radiance  upon  some  of 
the  pages  of  this  literature.  In  these  writings 
he  will  find  noble  thoughts  of  God,  high  moral 
ideals,  sharp  consciousness  of  sin,  earnest 


OF  THE  BIBLE  189 

solicitude  for  salvation,  anticipations  of  the 
future  life,  prayers  and  songs  which  might  be 
used  in  Christian  temples,  and  parables  which 
will  remind  him  of  Jesus.  It  would  be  unjust 
to  declare  that  divine  inspiration  had  nothing 
to  do  with  these  productions.  As  Lowell  has 
so  pertinently  said: 

Slowly  the  Bible  of  the  race  is  writ, 

And  not  on  paper  leaves  or  leaves  of  stone, 

Each  age,  each  kindred  adds  a  verse  to  it, 

Texts  of  despair  or  hope,  or  joy  or  moan; 

While  swings  the  sea,  while  mists  the  mountains  shroud, 

While  thunder's  surges  burst  on  cliffs  of  cloud, 

Still  at  the  prophet's  feet  the  nations  sit. 

Hence  our  question  is  not  whether  other 
literature  may  have  been  inspired,  but  whether 
the  literature  of  the  Bible  is  so  preeminently 
inspired  as  to  be  supreme  in  this  regard.  And 
the  general  tone  of  the  Scriptures  is  such  that 
few  readers  of  deep  intelligence  can  avoid  the 
impression  that  they  have  a  quality  transcend- 
ing that  of  any  other  writings.  Once  when 
Thackeray  had  been  reading  Victor  Hugo  he 
said,  "He  is  great  and  writes  like  God 
Almighty."  He  meant  no  irreverence  by  this 
striking  utterance,  but  he  gave  expression  to 
the  supreme  test  by  which  the  quality  of  the 
Bible  writers  is  to  be  measured.  In  so  far  as 
they  speak  like  God  they  are  the  preeminent 
teachers  of  truth.  Chief  Justice  Chase  said: 


190        THE  LITERARY  PRIMACY 

"There  came  a  time  in  my  life  when  I  doubted 
the  divinity  of  the  Scriptures,  and  I  resolved 
as  a  lawyer  and  a  judge  I  would  try  the  book 
as  I  would  try  anything  in  the  court  room, 
taking  evidence  for  and  against.  It  was  a 
long,  serious,  and  profound  study:  and  using 
the  same  principles  of  evidence  in  this  reli- 
gious matter  as  I  always  do  in  secular  matters, 
I  have  come  to  the  decision  that  the  Bible  is 
a  supernatural  book,  that  it  has  come  from 
God,  and  that  the  only  safety  for  the  human 
race  is  to  follow  its  teachings." 

II 

Since  inspiration  relates  to  men  and  not  to 
books,  it  is  apparent  that  it  will  be  conditioned 
by  certain  human  limitations,  unless  we 
regard  the  writers  as  mere  automatons,  a  thing 
quite  incredible.  Though  these  men  were 
moved  by  the  Holy  Ghost  their  individuality 
was  not  effaced.  As  Chrysostorn  said,  "Even 
though  it  was  Paul,  yet  he  was  a  man."  The 
inspired  writer  will  follow  his  intellectual 
aptitudes  not  less  than  the  man  who  is  devoid 
of  divine  inspiration.  Paul  was  a  logician; 
inspiration  did  not  make  him  a  writer  of 
romances.  David  was  a  poet;  inspiration  did 
not  make  him  a  historian.  Bezaleel  was  a 
skillful  artificer ;  inspiration  did  not  make  him 


OF  THE  BIBLE  191 

an  orator.  Inspiration  fills  a  man  with  divine 
energy,  but  this  operates  within  human  out- 
lines just  as  when  the  tide  sweeps  in  it  fills 
the  bays,  inlets,  and  capes  and  follows  the 
configuration  of  the  coast.  Life  in  the  seed,  to 
use  another  figure,  fulfills  the  promise  of  the 
species,  in  one  case  making  the  gnarled  oak 
and  in  another  the  straight  palm.  We  have 
one  Spirit  working  through  a  diversity  of  gifts. 
The  treasure  is  in  earthen  vessels,  and  thus  it 
occurs  that  the  Bible  presents  a  great  variety 
of  literature.  The  Holy  Ghost  employs  the 
talents  which  men  possess,  raising  them  to  the 
highest  point  of  efficiency,  but  never  imparting 
new  gifts  which  are  foreign  to  the  native  con- 
stitution of  a  particular  mind. 

If  inspiration  is  thus  limited  by  the  peculiar 
qualities  of  the  individual  writer,  so  also  it 
must  be  modified  by  intellectual  deficiencies. 
If  a  writer  is  not  a  scientist,  inspiration  will 
not  make  him  one.  If  he  is  a  poor  Greek 
scholar,  inspiration  will  not  make  him  a  good 
one.  If  he  has  slight  acquaintance  with  his- 
tory, or  has  been  misinformed  about  events, 
inspiration  will  not  make  him  an  accurate 
chronicler  of  human  affairs.  It  is  inconsistent 
for  us,  therefore,  to  demand  that  the  literature 
of  the  Bible  shall  be  taken  as  authoritative  on 
matters  of  lesser  import  than  those  which  deal 
with  the  spiritual  life.  It  is  wholly  unneces- 


192        THE  LITERARY  PRIMACY 

sary  for  us  to  be  disturbed  when  we  are  told 
that  the  biblical  writers  show  a  faulty  chro- 
nology, imperfect  scientific  conceptions,  or  use 
unreliable  statistics.  If  the  Bible  is  inspired 
for  the  purpose  of  lifting  humanity  to  loftier 
planes  of  spiritual  thought  and  to  induce  the 
purest  form  of  living,  then  it  is  of  small  con- 
cern to  what  extent  its  writers  may  deviate 
from  mere  historicity,  or  fall  below  the  scien- 
tific knowledge  of  our  times.  When  a  minister 
was  asked,  "How  do  you  reconcile  the  teach- 
ings of  the  Bible  with  the  latest  conclusions 
of  science?"  he  very  properly  replied:  "What 
are  the  latest  conclusions  of  science?  I  have 
not  seen  the  morning  newspaper."  The  steady 
advance  in  the  knowledge  of  the  universe  and 
its  energies  is  recognized  by  all  intelligent 
persons;  and  devout  people,  jealous  for  the 
reputation  of  the  Bible,  would  save  themselves 
much  pain  and  embarrassment  if  they  would 
frankly  concede  that  the  biblical  authors  were 
invariably  writing  from  the  standpoint  of  the 
crude  science  of  their  day  whenever  they  made 
allusions  to  supposed  facts  of  the  physical 
universe.  Niothing  could  have  more  thoroughly 
discredited  the  authenticity  of  the  Scriptures 
than  their  perfect  correspondence  in  all  points 
of  human  knowledge  with  the  results  of  subse- 
quent investigations  such  as  are  now  in  the 
hands  of  our  generation.  If  a  book  purporting 


OF  THE  BIBLE  193 

• 

to  be  five  hundred  years  old  should  disclose  an 
acquaintance  with  the  wonderful  discoveries 
which  science  has  made  in  our  own  time,  every- 
body would  at  once  denounce  the  work  as  an 
imposture.  If  we  should  demand  that  inspired 
writers  shall,  through  the  control  of  divine 
omniscience,  be  able  to  anticipate  the  conclu- 
sions of  scientific  research,  then  we  should  find 
the  Bible  wholly  inexplicable  to  us,  because 
our  deepest  thinkers  feel  that  the  riddles  of  the 
universe  are  far  from  being  solved.  In  one 
hundred  years  the  world  will  know  vastly 
more  about  the  universal  frame  than  it  is 
possible  for  us  to  conceive  by  any  exercise  of 
the  imagination.  If  the  Bible  embodied  such 
facts  as  will  come  to  men's  knowledge  in  the 
long  future  it  wrould  be  an  inscrutable  book. 
It  may  be  said  with  all  reverence  that  one  of 
the  charms  of  the  Bible  is  its  complete  human- 
ness.  It  is  so  perfect  as  a  manual  of  religion 
because  it  is  so  imperfect  in  many  of  those 
qualities  which  make  a  scientific  book  valuable 
to  students  of  phenomena.  The  supposed  con- 
flict between  science  and  religion,  based  upon 
a  thoroughly  inadequate  interpretation  of  the 
Scriptures,  is  an  absurdity  when  it  is  closely 
analyzed.  Science  can  take  care  of  itself  and 
the  Bible  can  take  care  of  itself,  and  the 
friends  of  one  need  not  worry  about  the  wel- 
fare of  the  other.  They  do  not  fall  into  the 


194        THE  LITERARY  PRIMACY 

same  category.  They  do  not  seek  the  same 
outcome.  The  fact  that  the  Bible  writers  can- 
not be  trusted  to  speak  authoritatively  upon 
matters  which  they  never  intended  to  treat 
definitely  does  not  disqualify  them  from  speak- 
ing to  the  souls  of  men  concerning  the  deepest 
interests  of  human  life.  A  lawyer  is  not  dis- 
qualified for  pursuing  his  profession  because 
he  has  no  acquaintance  with  Assyriology,  nor 
is  a  physician  disqualified  for  following  his 
healing  art  because  he  does  not  know  the 
Chinese  alphabet.  A  geologist  may  know 
vastly  more  about  the  structure  of  the  Swiss 
mountain  peaks  than  does  his  Alpine  guide, 
but  the  man  who  has  safely  led  many  parties 
of  tourists  over  the  perils  of  a  mountain  ascent 
is  of  incalculable  value  to  the  most  learned 
scientist  who  desires  to  scale  the  sublime 
heights  of  a  snow-clad  peak.  The  writers  of 
our  Bible  are  unquestionably  ill-informed 
about  many  things  when  judged  by  the  stan- 
dards of  modern  knowledge,  but  they  know 
the  human  heart  as  no  other  producers  of 
literature  have  known  it,  and  they  lift  before 
the  soul  ideals  which  were  never  conceived  by 
the  human  mind  until  their  inspired  writings 
were  delivered  to  the  world. 

Since  the  writers  who  have  given  to  us  this 
superb  library  we  call  the  Bible  lived  in 
periods  of  history  remote  from  us,  and  under 


OF  THE  BIBLE  195 

civilizations  which  were  different  from  ours, 
and  were  affected  by  circumstances  and  for- 
tunes dissimilar  from  one  another,  it  is  not 
strange  that  the  ethical  and  spiritual  quality 
of  what  they  gave  varies  in  value.  It  would 
seem  to  be  manifestly  unfair  to  compare  the 
moral  standards  of  men  living  in  the  early 
centuries  of  civilization  with  the  principles  of 
conduct  which  Christianity  has  taught  men 
and  which  many  centuries  of  Christian  history 
have  developed.  It  is  mere  justice  to  demand 
that  Paul  shall  be  tested  by  more  severe 
measurements  than  Abraham.  To  submit  the 
Song  of  Solomon  to  the  same  scrutiny  which 
the  Gospel  of  John  bears  without  injury,  and 
to  demand  of  it  the  same  spiritual  excellence 
which  we  observe  in  the  fourth  Gospel,  would 
be  obviously  inequitable.  The  book  of  Ecclesi- 
astes  and  the  Sermon  on  the  Mount  are  very 
far  apart,  as  the  unprejudiced  critic  must 
admit.  To  affirm  that  the  books  of  Chronicles 
are  to  be  judged  by  the  same  canons  we  apply 
to  the  Epistle  to  the  Romans  is  little  short 
of  ridiculous.  It  is  only  by  an  artificial 
method  of  interpreting  the  Bible  that  it  is 
possible  even  to  think  of  it  as  possessing  uni- 
form value.  The  spiritual  sense  of  devout 
believers  is  revolted  by  any  such  mechanical 
insistence  upon  the  equal  value  of  all  parts  of 
the  Bible.  Whenever  a  saint  proclaims  that 


196        THE  LITERARY  PRIMACY 

certain  portions  of  it  have  an  exalted  influence 
upon  his  life,  he  sits  in  judgment  upon  other 
portions  of  Scripture  and  intimates  that  they 
are  of  inferior  worth. 


Ill 

Hence  the  theory  of  strict  verbal  inspiration 
is  untenable.  Perhaps  there  are  not  many 
Christians  in  our  day  who  hold  that  the  Bible 
was  dictated  to  its  writers  and  that  they  were 
simply  instruments  employed  by  God  to  repro- 
duce with  absolute  accuracy  the  words  which 
flowed  from  his  mouth.  Yet  there  lingers 
among  us  enough  of  that  tradition  to  cause 
serious  embarrassment.  While  the  church  has 
not  committed  itself  baldly  to  any  such  teach- 
ing, there  is  a  widespread  feeling  that  some- 
thing akin  to  it  is  the  authoritative  position 
of  the  orthodox  bodies.  Great  harm  has  been 
done  to  religion  by  the  feeling  that  if  we  can- 
not hold  to  the  inspiration  of  every  word  in 
the  Bible,  a  total  surrender  of  the  great  volume 
as  the  source  of  religious  authority  must  fol- 
low. Either  we  must  take  the  Bible  as  perfect 
in  every  detail,  or  we  must  reject  the  Bible  as 
unreliable.  It  is  important  we  should  make  as 
clear  as  possible  to  our  generation  that  no 
such  alternative  exists.  Years  ago,  at  Ox- 
ford University,  Dean  Burgon,  preaching  on 


OF  THE  BIBLE  197 

the  Bible,  declared :  "Every  book  of  the  Bible, 
every  chapter  of  it,  every  verse  of  it,  every 
word  of  it,  every  syllable  of  it,  every  letter  of 
it,  is  the  direct  utterance  of  the  Most  High, 
faultless,  unerring,  supreme."  The  father  of 
Samuel  Taylor  Coleridge  referred  to  Hebrew 
as  "The  intimate  language  of  the  Holy  Ghost." 
On  the  other  hand,  Jowett  of  Balliol  College, 
said  that  "in  a  certain  sense  the  Authorized 
Version  was  more  inspired  than  the  original." 
If  our  theory  of  inspiration  is  correct,  then 
this  startling  statement  is  not  the  rash  thing 
that  some  would  suppose.  It  is  to  be  pre- 
sumed that  the  translators  in  1611,  being  very 
devout  men,  constantly  invoked  the  blessing  of 
God  upon  their  work,  and  that  infinite  wisdom 
was  pleased  to  grant  their  request,  so  that 
upon  the  inspiration  originally  given  to  the 
Bible  writers  there  was  added  the  inspiration 
which  God  gave  to  the  revered  translators  of 
the  ancient  tongues  into  the  English  vernacu- 
lar. Such  a  notion  of  the  continuance  of  in- 
spiration as  a  positive  help  to  the  illumination 
of  the  Scriptures  is  entirely  hostile  to  the 
traditional  view.  But  the  dictation  theory, 
which  we  really  derive  from  the  old  Hebrew 
rabbins,  if  pursued  to  its  logical  ends,  leads 
to  whimsical  absurdities.  We  are  told  by  an 
early  Jewish  legend  that  God  dictated  the 
Pentateuch  to  Moses,  and  that  the  writer  pur- 


198        THE  LITERARY  PRIMACY 

sued  his  task  solemnly  and  with  self-poise 
until  the  account  of  his  own  death  was  given, 
which  he  described  weeping.  There  is  an  old 
tradition  that  all  the  books  of  the  Old  Testa- 
ment had  been  destroyed  at  the  time  of  Nebuch- 
adnezzar, when  the  temple  at  Jerusalem  was 
burned.  To  repair  the  loss  God  dictated  these 
books  to  Ezra.  Nothing  could  be  more  me- 
chanical than  this,  and  nothing  more  likely  to 
encourage  the  doctrine  that  all  parts  of  the 
Old  Testament  are  equally  inspired.  The  Jews 
of  the  dispersion  had  a  somewhat  similar 
theory  about  the  inspiration  of  their  Greek 
Bible.  They  said  that  when  Ptolemy  Phila- 
delphus,  King  of  Egypt,  gathered  at  Alex- 
andria, seventy  elders  of  the  Jews  to  make  a 
Greek  translation  of  their  law,  he  put  each  one 
of  them  in  a  separate  cell,  in  order  to  avoid 
any  communication  between  them.  Then,  after 
working  for  seventy  days,  all  at  once  they 
shouted  "Amen!"  from  their  cells,  their  task 
having  been  accomplished.  And  when  the 
seventy  copies  had  been  compared  they  were 
found  to  agree  even  in  the  smallest  detail. 
Preposterous  as  this  story  seems  to  the  modern 
mind,  it  goes  scarcely  beyond  the  position 
taken  by  some  stanch  defenders  of  the  in- 
errancy of  the  Scriptures.  It  is  evident  that 
we  must  seek  a  better  theory  of  inspiration 
than  this. 


OF  THE  BIBLE  199 

What  has  served  to  sustain  such  an  unten- 
able doctrine  of  the  inspiration  of  the  Bible  is 
the  mistaken  idea  that  Protestantism  is  built 
upon  such  a  conception  of  the  Scriptures. 
When  the  spiritual  authority  of  Rome  was  de- 
fied in  the  sixteenth  century,  and  a  substitute 
was  required  for  the  ultimate  sovereignty  of  the 
Pope  over  the  consciences  of  men,  it  is  sup- 
posed that  the  Bible  was  taken  to  be  that  de- 
sired authority,  that  in  fact  it  became  the  Pope 
of  Protestantism.  Such  a  view  does  great  in- 
justice to  Martin  Luther  and  to  many  other 
of  the  reformers.  They  did  indeed  substitute 
the  Word  of  God  for  the  word  of  man,  but  they 
meant  not  so  much  that  the  Bible  in  its  totality 
should  be  regarded  as  the  final  authority,  but 
the  message  of  salvation  contained  in  the  book, 
the  Bible  within  the  Bible.  They  bowed  in 
adoration  not  before  certain  documents,  but 
before  the  God  revealed  in  Christ  through  the 
gospel  of  redemption.  They  went  still  further 
and  found  through  the  witness  of  the  Holy 
Spirit  in  the  heart  of  the  believer  the  same 
spirit  that  inspired  the  Bible  and  gave  them 
assurance  that  it  came  from  God.  In  later 
periods  it  cannot  be  denied  that  Protestants 
not  quite  satisfied  with  the  position  of  the 
early  reformers  did  make  the  whole  Bible  as 
it  now  stands  the  literal  WTord  of  God  in  all 
its  parts,  as  if  every  syllable  had  been  written 


200        THE  LITERARY  PEIMACY 

by  the  finger  of  God  himself.  This  position 
did  great  harm  to  religion,  and  we  have  not 
fully  escaped  its  baneful  influence.  It  pro- 
ceeded from  the  fact  that  those  who  were 
responsible  for  it  could  not  divest  themselves 
of  the  feeling  that  an  external  authority  was 
indispensable.  The  logic  of  the  Roman  Catho- 
lic Church  in  this  respect  is  well-nigh  perfect. 
These  are  its  positions:  The  Bible  is  not  in- 
errant.  It  must  be  interpreted,  therefore,  by 
illumined  authorities,  such  as  Church  Coun- 
cils. These  Councils  are  not,  however,  always 
convenient  or  possible  when  they  are  most 
needed.  A  Pope,  therefore,  who  is  endowed 
with  infallibility,  must  be  utilized.  All  this 
has  the  great  merit  of  simplicity,  and  it  has 
awakened  the  jealousy  of  some  Protestants. 
They  insist  that  in  the  place  of  an  infallible 
Pope  they  shall  have  an  infallible  Book.  They 
forget  that  the  purpose  of  God  with  respect 
to  the  Bible  is  to  reveal  himself,  not  to  pre- 
serve a  faultless  literature.  Their  mental  atti- 
tude is  well  described  by  James  Martineau : 
"Yes ;  the  heavenly  essence  in  the  earthern  jar, 
the  ethereal  perfume  in  the  tainting  medium, 
the  everlasting  truth  in  the  fragile  receptacle 
— this  is  just  the  combination  which  does  not 
content  the  weakness  and  self-distrust  of  men. 
They  want  not  the  treasure  only,  but  the 
casket  too,  to  come  from  the  sky,  and  be  of 


OF  THE  BIBLE  201 

the  crystal  of  the  sky."  John  Locke  said,  "He 
that  would  take  away  reason  to  make  room  for 
revelation  puts  out  the  light  of  both.'5  God 
has  dowered  man  with  powers  and  functions 
which,  when  properly  safeguarded  by  spiritual 
fellowship  with  him,  enable  human  beings  to 
discriminate,  in  any  writings  purporting  to 
be  sacred,  the  mind  of  God  from  the  mind  of 
man.  The  normal  process  of  seeking  revela- 
tions of  the  Eternal  is  illustrated  in  the  lines 
with  which  Bishop  Ken  describes  a  righteous 
man: 

Three  volumes  he  assiduously  perused, 
Which  heavenly  wisdom  and  delight  infused, 
God's  works,  his  conscience,  and  the  Book  inspired. 

It  is  not  irreverent  to  say  that  some  sort 
of  agreement  between  these  media  of  divine 
communication  ought  to  be  possible  in  arriv- 
ing at  an  authentic  revelation  of  God.  Protest- 
antism is  in  its  very  essence  an  emphatic  dis- 
sent from  the  proposition  that  an  unassailable 
and  indefeasible  authority  for  religion  should 
be  found  in  the  church.  By  the  same  token  it 
does  not  demand  perfection  of  detail  in  the 
Bible  to  such  an  extent  as  to  exclude  the  opera- 
tions of  the  Holy  Spirit  on  the  minds  of  those 
who  read  the  Scriptures.  It  reposes  some 
confidence  in  the  spiritual  consciousness  of  the 
individual  Christian.  It  holds  that  one  of  the 


202        THE  LITERAKY  PRIMACY 

prime  necessities  for  the  interpretation  of  the 
Bible  is  not  merely  a  consistent  theory  of  its 
inspiration,  but  men  to  read  it  who  are  them- 
selves inspired  by  the  same  Energy  which  pro- 
duced it.  "God  reveals  himself  to  the  readers 
of  the  Scriptures,"  said  Dr.  George  P.  Fisher, 
"as  really  as  to  their  writers."  "There  are 
inspired  readers,"  said  Joseph  Parker,  "as 
certainly  as  there  are  inspired  writers."  How 
can  anyone  read  the  New  Testament,  particu- 
larly the  words  of  Jesus,  with  regard  to  the 
Holy  Spirit's  office  in  leading  men  to  the  truth, 
without  believing  that? 

We  should  be  saved  much  trouble  if  in  every 
inquiry  concerning  the  inspiration  of  the  Bible 
we  were  to  retain  a  clear  understanding  of 
what  the  Bible  actually  is,  as  distinguished 
from  what  it  is  ignorantly  supposed  to  be. 
Then  we  should  be  in  a  position  to  examine 
intelligently  its  contents  and  motives,  and  ask 
whether  it  could  be  what  it  is  and  undertakes 
to  do  without  being  inspired.  A  recapitula- 
tion of  certain  steps  already  taken  may  not 
be  amiss  at  this  point. 

The  Bible  did  not  produce  religion :  religion 
produced  the  Bible. 

The  Bible  is,  therefore,  a  record  of  religious 
evolution  or  an  exposition  of  religious  experi- 
ence under,  as  we  believe,  divine  tutelage. 

This  shifts  the  question  of  inspiration  from 


OF  THE  BIBLE  203 

documents  to  their  authors.  Inspiration  is 
given  to  men,  not  to  books. 

These  writers  of  the  Bible  were  under  divine 
inspiration  for  one  end  only — the  development 
of  spiritual  truth,  not  the  teaching  of  science, 
nor  even  the  making  of  a  historical  record 
perfect  in  every  detail. 

They  were  still  men  after  they  were  the 
recipients  of  inspiration.  Therefore  they  wrote 
as  men.  They  lost  nothing  of  their  individu- 
ality. 

They  were  men  of  differing  degrees  of  spirit- 
ual excellence.  Therefore  their  writings  are 
not  of  uniform  religious  value. 

The  test  to  be  applied  to  their  writings  is 
the  correspondence  of  those  writings  with  the 
known  character  of  God,  specifically  as  re- 
vealed in  Jesus  the  Christ. 

The  Bible  as  a  whole  may  be  regarded  as 
an  infallible  guide  in  morals  and  religion  only 
by  admitting  this  principle  of  interpretation, 
the  New  Testament  supplementing  and  cor- 
recting, where  needed,  the  Old  Testament ;  the 
Sermon  on  the  Mount  carrying  forward  the 
Decalogue;  the  Gospels  and  Epistles  moving 
on  to  higher  ideals  than  the  Psalms  and  the 
prophets  express. 

It  is  a  great  blunder  to  confuse  inspiration 
with  omniscience. 

Inspiration  is  a  continuous  gift  of  God, 


204        THE  LITERAKY  PRIMACY 

modern  believers  in  him  having  this  endow- 
ment as  surely  as  the  men  of  old,  "who  spake 
as  they  were  moved  by  the  Holy  Ghost." 

IV 

The  interior  grounds  on  which  men  believe 
that  the  Bible  is  inspired  have  already  been 
suggested.  If  we  cannot  find  reasons  for  con- 
fessing our  faith  in  the  inspiration  of  the 
Scriptures  in  the  quality  and  contents  of  the 
literature  itself,  surely  we  cannot  be  induced 
to  adopt  this  article  of  faith  on  the  basis  of 
any  mechanical  conception  of  its  divine  origin. 
It  is  because  the  Bible  writers  speak  to  the 
spiritual  sense  of  mankind  with  unerring  aim 
that  we  credit  those  great  documents  with 
divine  inspiration.  Coleridge  has  phrased  the 
fact  of  human  experience  touching  the  Bible 
in  well-known  words:  "In  the  Bible  there  is 
more  that  finds  me  than  I  have  experienced 
in  all  other  books  put  together:  the  words  of 
the  Bible  find  me  at  greater  depths  of  my 
being ;  and  whatever  thus  finds  me  brings  with 
it  an  irresistible  evidence  of  its  having  pro- 
ceeded from  the  Holy  Spirit." 

In  a  similar  strain  Joseph  Parker  says,  "I 
now  know  that  the  Bible  is  inspired.  It 
addresses  itself  to  every  aspect  and  every 
necessity  of  my  nature.  It  is  my  own  biog- 


OF  THE  BIBLE  205 

raphy.  I  seem  to  have  read  it  in  some  other 
world.  We  are  old  friends;  the  breathing  of 
eternity  is  in  us  both,  and  we  have  happened 
together,  to  our  mutual  joy,  on  this  rough 
shore  of  Time." 

.Bishop  Boone  of  the  Church  of  England  was 
being  assisted  by  an  intelligent  Chinese  secre- 
tary in  translating  the  New  Testament.  Work- 
ing together  one  day,  the  secretary  arose  from 
his  table,  walked  up  and  down  the  room  for 
some  time  in  apparent  mental  perturbation, 
and  finally  exclaimed,  "Bishop,  this  book  must 
be  of  God,  for  it  tells  me  of  myself."  That  is 
the  fundamental  test  of  the  divine  inspiration 
of  the  Bible. 

There  are,  of  course,  other  grounds  upon 
which  reason  may  construct  arguments  for  a 
belief  in  the  inspiration  of  the  Scriptures. 
For  example,  there  is  a  certain  unity  binding 
all  these  various  documents  together  in  a  pur- 
pose to  lead  the  minds  of  men  into  fellowship 
with  the  Spirit  of  God,  and  this  unity  is  evi- 
dently not  the  result  of  collusion  between  the 
writers  who  were  in  many  instances  far  apart 
in  time  from  one  another,  but  is  the  inevitable 
consequence  of  their  dominance  by  one  great 
mind.  The  first  sentence  in  Macaulay's  His- 
tory of  England  reads:  "I  purpose  to  write 
the  History  of  England  from  the  accession  of 
King  James  II  down  to  a  time  which  is  within 


206        THE  LITERARY  PRIMACY 

the  memory  of  men  still  living."  To  this  plan 
Macaulay  made  all  his  work  conform,  and  this 
undertaking  he  developed  as  far  as  he  went 
with  much  fidelity.  Now  in  the  Bible  there 
is  no  definite  proposal  stated  at  the  beginning, 
because  the  Scriptures  do  not  constitute  one 
book,  but  a  library  of  books.  Nevertheless,  no 
man  reads  the  Bible  through  without  per- 
ceiving that  the  books  are  actually  strung 
upon  a  single  thread,  the  redemption  of  man- 
kind and  the  restoration  of  the  race  to  fellow- 
ship with  God.  This  fact  greatly  impressed 
the  poet  Dryden,  who  wrote: 

Whence  but  from  heaven  could  men  unskilled  in  arts 
In  several  ages  born,  in  several  parts, 
Weave  such  agreeing  truths,  or  how,  or  why 
Should  all  conspire  to  cheat  us  with  a  lie? 
Unasked  their  pains,  ungrateful  their  advice, 
Starving  their  gain,  and  martyrdom  their  price. 

Now  it  is  not  merely  this  unity  of  purpose 
which  impresses  us  with  the  unquestionable 
inspiration  of  the  Scriptures,  but  also  the 
theme  upon  which  this  literature  is  concen- 
trated. The  characteristic  and  dominant  note 
is  the  story  of  redeeming  love,  a  golden  strain 
which,  whatever  may  be  our  theories  of  in- 
spiration, never  was  touched  by  the  noblest 
writers  of  the  world  until  the  Bible  authors 
took  it  up.  Indeed,  we  know  from  searching 
our  own  hearts  that  no  man  would  have  dared 


OP  THE  BIBLE  207 

to  assume  that  God,  the  infinite  and  absolute, 
was  concerned  for  the  welfare  of  the  least  crea- 
ture in  his  universe  if  the  Bible  had  not  first, 
through  prophets  and  priests,  intimated  it,  and 
finally,  through  the  lips  of  Jesus  Christ,  made 
it  a  sublime  certainty.  The  bare  dream  that 
God  would  stoop  to  the  lowest  human  intelli- 
gence, to  the  basest  and  most  brutal  indi- 
vidual, to  lift  him  up  into  fellowship  with 
himself,  is  so  impossible  without  the  aid  of 
divine  revelation  that  it  never  came  to  a 
human  brain  until  the  Bible  introduced  it. 
Nor  could  that  vast  and  unmatched  conception 
of  Deity  retain  currency  in  the  world  to-day 
were  it  not  for  the  fact  that  this  enduring 
literature  which  inspires  men  to  preach  and 
to  write  were  still  the  possession  of  mankind. 
If  it  were  possible  to  remove  from  the  litera- 
ture of  the  world  the  influence  of  the  Bible, 
and  to  banish  from  the  recollections  of  men 
the  teachings  of  Jesus,  there  would  never 
spring  into  the  thought  of  the  world  the  faint- 
est hope  that  God  would  actually  love  sinful 
men.  If  there  were  no  other  ground  for  believ- 
ing in  the  inspiration  of  the  Scriptures,  this 
would  be  a  compelling  reason  for  accepting 
the  teaching  that  God  gave  through  these  great 
writers  of  the  Bible  his  own  message  to  man- 
kind. 

If  we  accept  all  that  the  destructive  critics 


208        THE  LITERARY  PRIMACY 

of  our  day  have  asserted,  for  the  sake  of  avoid- 
ing controversy;  if  we  admit  that  the  Bible 
is  a  compilation  of  books  which  are  evidently 
the  product,  for  the  most  part,  of  transcendent 
human  genius,  but  which  exhibit  all  the  falli- 
bility which  ordinarily  characterizes  the  work 
of  men ;  the  historical  sections  are  unreliable, 
the  chronology  is  faulty,  the  statistics  are 
erroneous,  the  science  is  puerile,  and  some  of 
the  miracles  recorded  are  preposterous;  there 
is  nothing  in  these  writings  which  cannot  be 
accounted  for  on  natural  grounds ;  though  the 
Bible  as  a  whole  is  obviously  superior  to  all 
other  religious  and  philosophical  works  pro- 
duced by  man,  yet  its  inspiration  is  only  such 
as  moved  the  pen  of  Homer,  of  Plato,  of  Shake- 
speare, of  the  best  and  clearest  minds  of  the 
ages — then  we  are  left  with  the  problem  of 
the  Bible's  unparalleled  influence  on  civili- 
zation unsolved,  and  the  power  of  the  Scrip- 
tures to  regenerate  human  nature  unexplained. 
What  the  Bible  has  done  for  the  world  of 
letters,  for  the  redemption  of  society,  for  the 
salvation  of  men,  has  been  but  sketchily  and 
imperfectly  touched  upon  in  these  lectures. 
The  record  of  its  magnificent  achievements  one 
may  read  in  the  open  books  of  history.  Our 
modern  civilization  could  have  had  no  exist- 
ence without  the  influence  of  the  Bible.  The 
social  fabric  of  the  leading  nations  of  the 


OF  THE  BIBLE  209 

world  would  dissolve  if  the  Bible  were  re- 
moved from  its  structure.  When  one  thinks 
of  this — and  it  is  a  subject  fit  for  the  most 
patient  and  exhaustive  investigation — he  is 
moved  to  agree  with  the  sentiment  eloquently 
phrased  by  Dr.  Richard  S.  Storrs : 

Surely,  unless  all  experience  is  a  lie,  and  all  argument 
a  dream,  but  one  mind  that  has  ever  wrought  in  the 
earth  was  competent  to  this:  to  make  a  book,  through 
so  many  writers,  which  the  Malay  should  love  as  well  as 
we;  which  Newton  should  cherish  as  of  all  most  precious, 
and  Pascal  should  accept  as  furnishing  in  its  structure  a 
new  proof  for  Christianity,  and  which  the  ragged  and 
unkempt  child,  picked  out  of  the  streets,  or  drawn  from 
the  depths  of  vilest  slums,  should  find  to  him  the  most 
fascinating  of  volumes.  The  theophany  of  Sinai  was 
more  striking  than  this;  but  even  it  was  scarcely  more 
vivid  in  its  exhibition  of  the  presence  of  God. 

And  now  if  it  were  written  in  intelligible  lightnings 
in  yonder  sky,  "The  Bible  is  from  God,"  and  underneath 
the  declaration  were  stamped,  in  intervolved  thunder- 
bolts, the  very  signature  of  Jehovah,  it  could  hardly  be 
more  demonstrative  than  this  of  his  authorship  in  the 
Scripture.  We  meet  the  mind  that  built  the  earth  when 
we  open  the  leaves  of  this  Book  of  the  World. 

Were  all  the  seas  one  chrysolite, 

This  earth  a  golden  ball, 
And  diamonds  all  the  stars  of  night, 

This  book  were  worth  them  all. 


THIS  BOOK  IS  DUE  ON  THE  LAST  DATE 
STAMPED  BELOW 


AN  INITIAL  FINE  OF  25  CENTS 

WILL  BE  ASSESSED  FOR  FAILURE  TO  RETURN 
THIS  BOOK  ON  THE  DATE  DUE.  THE  PENALTY 
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OVERDUE. 


AUG 


1947 


ij 

1  wj  *i         -      * 


'      f 


LD  21-100m-7,'4<3  (6936s) 


YB  21778 


359894 


:V^ 


UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA  LIBRARY 


